06: Cat and Mouse pt1 of the Suffering Trilogy
by Silent Elegy
Summary: A ghost hunting expidition gone wrong leaves Danny stranded on an island. Alone, he must battle a psychotic psychic, horrendous monsters, and his own personal demons in a twisted game where the price of failure is his family's lives.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom and all related characters are the product of Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon studios. Hermes Haight, Horage Gauge,Killjoy, andrelated character are the product of Midway Games. Silver and Kat/Electra are the product Silent Elegy.

PRE-NOTE: Said this a few times already, but I need to mention it again. This is a crossover with a game called the Suffering. That's a very mature, very dark themed survival horror game that I can only highly (oh so very highly) recommend to people over 18. That said, the fic isn't that dark.

It is, however, still darker than my usual fare. It's rated mostly for caution since there is a great deal fighting, although most of it is merely alluded to. There are adult themes and a lot references to death. I mean a lot. Phew, this warning is hard to write without spoiling everything. Oh, yeah, and there's no cussing, but one of the characters says "bastard" a time or two.

That said, like it says in the summary, Danny is being attacked with his own insecurities and personal demons, so expect a great deal of angst. Expect to be disturbed by some things, and outright repulsed by others. Don't be afraid to post flames; I am expecting them for this. But please, make them intelligent. Now...

* * *

East of Maryland is an island by the name of Carnate. It is a dark place with a long and bloody history. First settled by Puritans, they disbanded the community after only a few decades, having caused the wrongful deaths of eleven people on the deceitful words of three children. 

The next known story in its gruesome history details the wreck of a Spanish slave galleon. Their ship smashed to pieces on the rocks of the beach, the Spaniards barely escaped with their lives. The black slaves they were transporting also survived in the hold. However, rather than rescue them and risk their own lives, the traders left them behind to be eaten by rats. The ship still rests in the place where it crashed, though it has quite rotted away.

In the late nineteen hundreds, a family bought the island and built a huge mansion on the western side. No one knows what occurred during that time; the family was remarkably close-mouthed about the whole affair. They moved almost immediately, and their home became an asylum.

The Carnate Institution for the Alienated was run by one Dr. Killjoy, an insane man who, despite his best intentions, caused a great deal of suffering. Few of his patients survived his depraved treatments, and fewer still came out of it with anything resembling sanity. Insane when they went in, perhaps, they were near-mindless when they came back out. The institution was closed, thankfully, when Killjoy disappeared.

During the second war to end all wars, the island was converted into a military barracks and outpost called Fort Maleson. It was simply more blood to be spilled on the soaked ground and devoured by the growing evil of that place. The colonel, whose name is no longer recalled, was an unsettled man at best. The island drove him over the edge. After the coincidental crash of a German airplane, he proclaimed that there were spies operating among his soldiers. In refusal to acknowledge that the crash had not been a sign of treason, he forced his men into a firing squad for the brutal execution of three of their comrades and friends. The bodies of the deceased were left on the cliff where they died to be consumed by crows and rats. Their skeletons remain tied to the stakes to this very day. The army headquarters, finally hearing of the colonel's mad ideals, launched an inquiry and declared the man unfit for duty. Rather than submit to a court martial, he locked himself in his office and placed the barrel of his pistol in his own mouth.

At the end of the war, the island was given to the Department of Corrections and turned into a prison colony. Abbott State Penitentiary was not a pleasant place, even by the standards of most prisons back then. It was the place where the state sent men on death row, and the worst examples of society could be found behind those iron bars. Many innocent men were sent to Abbott, as to any other prison. But no one remains innocent there for long.

Abbott had the highest homicide rate of any other prison in the country, and possibly the world. More important, but less aggrandized was the prison's suicide rate. Few men survived Abbott; those who were not killed often killed themselves, especially among those who were sentenced to life.

During the prison's building, inmates were used as workers at a quarry near to the site. It was during a dig in a dangerous shaft than a cave-in occurred. No one knows exactly what happened there, but the theories are numerous. The corrections officers claimed that the inmates were crushed and instantly killed. Other reports state that they were left to die slowly from blood loss, starvation, or suffocation, depending on the nature and severity of their wounds and location in relation to the only source of oxygen. As one can imagine, the inmates favored the latter version of events, and used it as an excuse to skin said C.O.'s alive before lynching, or hanging, them.

The most notable of inmates was Horace Gauge. It is no longer known for what crime he was sent to Abbott, but it hardly matters. While incarcerated, he became convinced that his wife was in insurmountable danger without his protection. While on a conjugal visit, he cut her, not once, but too many times to count while she slept. Her death was swift and painless; his was not. He was sentenced to the electric chair for his crime of passion, a painful death at best. Something went wrong, however, and executioner Hermes Haight was forced to electrocute him three times. Legend has it he was still buried alive.

It was shortly after this event that Haight himself snapped. He had been executioner for twenty-seven years, a role that he cherished. He was a sadist and a merciless killer. Only the fact that his murders were state-condoned prevented him from sharing his victims' cells. It was well-known that his preferred method of execution was the gas chamber. He introduced a green dye into the mixture so as to watch the victim's panic as they saw it coming. In the end, he went into the chamber himself. It was sealed up after that.

The latest chapter in the island's history is the day the land finally rose up in rebellion. The rumors of that mad time are as diverse as the people who survived it. General consensus states that horrifying monsters made up of every bloody act ever perpetuated on that soil awakened to massacre the unwitting humans trapped there. Few people truly believe the tales, but those who survived it know. It was a single night of the purest terror. The island was evacuated shortly after dawn; there were far too few people to rescue. The bodies of the deceased were left behind for retrieval later, a time that never arrived.

Had they gone back, they might have realized they left someone behind.

* * *

A/N: I would like to address a review from What If?. Random, the Guardians were simply pointing out that Clockwork had done something to change the future of an entire planet, which is what he was reaming them out for. Although, that's an interesting idea... 


	2. Chapter One

A dark-haired, blue eyed boy leaned on the rail of the ferry to watch as they passed a dark and foreboding place. He sighed in irritation as his father proclaimed for the umpteenth time, "Five years! After five years, we're the first people allowed back on the island! Can you just imagine what kind of ghosts we'll find there?"

"Yes, dear," his mother said, also for the umpteenth time. "Jack, honey, at least try to act composed. At least until we get there."

The boy's sister, next to him at the rail, rolled her eyes and muttered something about their father never changing. "Hey, Jazz," Danny said. "I think I'm just going to go sit in the RV for a while."

"Have fun," Jazz replied. "I'm going to spend what little time we have left in the real world out here in the fresh air."

Danny grinned in sympathy. Once they actually reached the dock at Carnate Island, he and his sister would probably be confined to the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle for the duration of their stay to protect them from all the ghosts that were supposed to roam the island.

From the outside, the Fenton Ghost RV looked like some kind of state of the art military attack vehicle, and the interior did little to discourage that notion. Almost every available surface was covered with buttons for the activation of various ghost-hunting weaponries. The Fentons were, after all, the world's leading experts on ghosts.

Danny leaned back in the driver's seat, but his relaxation was interrupted by an especially loud peal of thunder. The weather was supposed to have been clear today; that was the only reason the ferry operators were even willing to consider bringing the Fenton family out here. He glanced out the window to see the ferrymen frantically running around on deck doing things that only made sense to them. He saw the rest of his family running for the relative safety of the RV to escape the torrential downpour that had sprang up from out of nowhere. The ferry rocked in a most troubling manner as previously nonexistent waves became near vertical slopes of water. He thought he saw someone slip overboard, but before he could invoke his ghost powers to try to save them, a flash of lightning hit the boat. Danny was thrown against the roof of the RV; his vision exploded into electric blue light just before everything went dark.

* * *

A gentle shushing noise intruded on the comfortable darkness the boy found himself in. He wondered who he was, then he wondered why he cared. He considered moving, but his muscles ached for some reason; he couldn't quite remember why…

Then reality came back into all-too sharp focus and he sat up quickly, ignoring the pain that shot through his head as he did so.

"Mom!" Danny called, standing shakily. "Dad! Jazz! Anybody?" He looked around to take in his shadowed surroundings and noticed the RV lying upside down nearby. Its treads were gone, and its windows shattered, but it was otherwise intact. The ferry and its operators were no where in evidence.

_Danny Fenton…_a voice whispered suddenly. It spoke into his mind and sent chills down his spine. It was the kind of whispered voice you heard the villain use in horror movies when talking to his victim on the phone.

"Where are you?" Danny demanded with more bravado than he actually felt at being dropped into this situation.

_Or should I call you Danny Phantom _the voice continued as though he hadn't spoken._You may call me _El Fantasma De Plata._I have your family. Come and find them, _niño_…if you dare…_

Danny clenched his hands into fists and yelled, "Fine! I'm going ghost!" It was his battle cry; he almost always yelled it when he invoked his alter ego, and he didn't much appreciate the laughter that echoed through his mind in response. He threw himself into the air and got just high enough to see over the trees when pain shot through his body that rivaled anything he had felt at the hands of some of his worst enemies. He hit the sandy turf of the beach with a muffled, yet painful, thump.

_Come now, _niño._ You didn't think I would make it easy on you, did you _Vergonzoso!

Danny sat up again, slowly this time, and looked at his white-gloved hands. The voice had shorted out his powers, but he was still in ghost mode? That didn't make sense. He stood again. "What did you just do?" he asked, but the voice seemed content to let him puzzle his own way through. He jumped into the air and came back down hard.

"Okay," he muttered, nervously running his hands through his hair. "So I can't fly. No big deal; I'll just walk."

He looked furtively around at the nighttime atmosphere. It was chill, not that he could feel it as a ghost. The sky almost looked like a black hole, devoid of stars and moon. It was just cloud covering, but it was still very creepy. Something moved in the brush to his left; he thought he saw a flash of white, but dismissed it as his overactive imagination and set off to find anyone who might still be alive.

After a great deal of trial and error, he discovered that the only powers he had left were his ectoplasmic energy blast and his shield. He'd be able to fight if necessary, but he wouldn't have much of an advantage.

The boat docks appeared ahead, and Danny quickened his pace. Maybe the ferrymen were there, or even his family. At that point, he would have welcomed Plasmius. He started to shift out of ghost mode so as not to alarm anyone and stopped short. He couldn't change back. "Oh, this is just great!" he yelled at the sky. "Can't fly, can't go intangible, and now I can't even go human!"

A clattering noise behind him interrupted his ranting, and he turned hopefully, expecting to see someone. The creatures that stepped into a patch of moonlight that the clouds hadn't found yet made the boy freeze. There were three of them, vaguely human in nature with dark hides the color of dried blood. Their heads were attached to their bodies by some kind of rack, as though they had been chopped off and fitted back like that. Then one of them started to make a noise like a knife being sharpened, and Danny tore his gaze away from their heads to their limbs. Each creature had some kind of blade that replaced their arms at the elbow and legs at the knee. The one in front, larger than the others, also had spikes growing out of its shoulders. It growled in what the boy would have sworn was pleasure as it took a few steps forward.

Danny gulped and forced his legs to move backwards for each step the creature took towards him. Its two companions started forward as well; one of them trailed a bladed arm against the ground, evoking the squeal of metal against concrete. Suddenly, the large one dropped to all fours and charged forward.

Remembering at the last possible second that he could not go intangible, Danny threw himself out of the way and was nearly skewered by a second creature. He threw up his shield as the third lunged toward him, and it bounced off harmlessly. They circled him after that and tested for openings while he tried to figure out how to get away. He couldn't keep his shield up forever, but if he lowered it, he was dead. He couldn't use his energy blast and maintain the shield simultaneously, and he would only be able to get two of the creatures with it anyway. Unfortunately, those were his only options at the moment.

An idea began to form as he looked for a way out. He drew his shield closer until it was right up against his palms. The creatures, predictably, moved forward in eager response. As soon as they were right against the shield, Danny shoved outwards and successfully knocked them away. Without pausing to see what they were doing, he started running.

He could hear them behind him, coming closer. He turned and fired an ectoplasmic energy blast at the closest creature and was rewarded by its pained scream. Suddenly, something very large erupted from the ground in front of him, and he dodged to the side accordingly. The fence that surrounded the docks was just a few feet away; Danny threw himself at it as high as he could and scrambled the rest of the way over. From there, he climbed some boxes to the roof of a small office and turned to see his pursuers.

The thing that had jumped in front of him looked vaguely humanoid, only much, much larger. It stood hunched over and what looked like battery of rifles was attached to its back. The three creatures had stopped to fight this gun monster; the battle was not going in their favor.

"Don't leave me!" a voice cried suddenly. Danny whirled around to see a girl standing at the edge of the dock, her hand outstretched as though reaching for something. Her snow white hair hung loosely down to her waist, and she wore a white dress with heavy iron chains draped around her. Her tone was plaintive, desperate. "Please, come back!"

Danny glanced over his shoulder to make sure the monsters were still preoccupied with each other, then slid down the roof and approached the girl. "Um…Miss?" he began.

She lowered her arm and turned, and Danny could see that her eyes were the color of ice cubes. "They're gone," she informed him in a monotone voice. "I'm all alone now." Suddenly, she vanished as though she had never been, and Danny stumbled backwards. If it was a ghost, then his ghost sense could be added to the list of powers that no longer worked. Somehow, though, it felt like something else.

Where she had been standing was a small journal of some sort. Hoping for some kind of clue as to what was going on, Danny picked it up and flipped through it. The first page contained an introduction by a former prisoner named of Clem. On turning the page, the boy was greeted by the likeness of the creatures he had just been running from. Below the sketch, Clem wrote a small passage describing the creatures. He called them Slayers, a fitting name, and theorized that they represented decapitation.

On the next page, Danny was shown the Marksman. Again, there was a short description of the creature currently laying waste to three slayers, as well as an explanation of their existence, in memory of the execution at Fort Maleson.

After reading through it carefully, Danny tossed it onto a crate. It wouldn't save his life, but it did help to have something to call these creatures. He glanced around the corner of the building to see the marksman shuffling around aimlessly. Clem had called it the "reincarnation of a military firing squad"; it wore a blindfold over its eyes, yet it could see just fine. At least, there was only one.

Danny leaned out and fired an energy blast at it, then ducked back as it roared and began firing in his general direction. Once it stopped, Danny fired another blast at it, evoking the same response. This went on for some time, but at last, the creature gave an anguished howl and fell to the ground. A long time went by during which nothing moved. Finally, Danny crept out of his hiding place; still no response from the marksman. Emboldened, he walked around to the gate and left to continue on his way.

_Well done…_

"Where are you?" Danny shouted. There was still fear, but mostly there was anger. He huffed at the lack of a response.

Carnate was a quiet place. There were no birds, no insects; just the occasional growls, roars, and screams from the monsters. With nothing better to occupy his attention, he found his mind wandering. He was afraid for his family. The voice hadn't said anything about hurting them, but that didn't mean it wouldn't.

He stopped suddenly as someone appeared in the road ahead. "Jazz?" he called. She turned to look at him blankly. He yelled joyously and ran towards her.

"Danny," she whispered. "Save yourself."

He skidded to a stop as the image of his sister vanished. "No!" He glared up at the sky, having arbitrarily designated it as the location of the voice. "Bring her back!"

"But she was never here…" said a low voice. Danny whirled around, but there was nothing to see.

"Who are you?" he demanded as he turned slowly to look for the speaker. "What's going on?"

"…Temper…temper…" It was the voice of a man who had been gasping for air for so long that it was second nature. He spoke in a leisurely drawl that did nothing to hide the breathless sound of his voice. "…All will be revealed…in due time…"

Danny opened his mouth to demand once again to know what was going on or at least be told what condition his family was in. He was interrupted by a clattering noise that signaled the arrival of more slayers. Knowing he couldn't run forever, he turned to fight, but part of his mind stayed on what he had just heard. Was this all in his head?

* * *

I'm going to go ahead tell you all, _El Fantasma_ and the girl in white are my original characters. There is one or two others that I'll tell you about when we get to them. Everything else is taken from the game in some way, more or less. Also...

_niño _ child

_vergonzoso _ shameful


	3. Chapter Two

Mainliners. Monsters created by the evil of Carnate Island to commemorate those inmates executed by lethal injection. Like all their brethren, they were humanoid, but their small size and hunched posture reminded Danny of a frog. There were syringes filled with some glowing green liquid pierced into the creatures' backs and through their eyes. Their main method of attack was to yank one out and either throw it, or try to stab him with it.

Based on the lethal nature of all the other creatures, Danny assumed those needles were filled with whatever was used in the actual executions and, as such, were supposed to kill him instantly. He pulled one out of his arm with a sigh and dropped it onto the ground, before turning back to the squealing mainliner.

"Okay, do you even know that's not working?" he asked, a useless gesture since the creature was not intelligent. It responded by throwing another. Danny rolled his eyes and mimed shooting the creature with a gun. The ectoplasmic energy blast hit the thing full in the chest and knocked it backwards. A green gas rose from the body as the lethal poisons escaped, heralding the mainliner's death.

Danny looked around quickly to see if any others were going to appear. He had been walking along, minding his own business when one of the creatures had suddenly pulled itself up out of a nearby puddle and started attacking. While dealing with that, another one had appeared in the same manner behind him; that was when he learned that his ghost form apparently protected him from their poison-filled syringes. Those two had been followed by five others that came systematically out of the two puddles. He groaned as a squeal heralded the arrival of one behind him, and didn't even look around to blast it. After several minutes of silence, he resumed his trek.

He was getting used to the place. The marksmen were a bit of a problem if he was attacked by more than one and couldn't find any cover, but the slayers had proved relatively easy to defeat as long he kept moving. Of course, if he stopped, he was in danger of being impaled, and he was no mood to learn if his ghost form would protect him from that.

He had no idea how long he had been walking; it felt like an eternity. He had passed a burned down village some time ago, and that was the most exciting thing that had happened since he left the ocean behind. Until the mainliners showed up, that is. Now, he was forced to come to a stop at a very large chasm that stretched across the road.

"Oh, now what?" he yelled at no one. There was no bridge and it was too wide to jump. It extended as far as he could see in either direction, and it was too deep to simply climb down this side and back up the other.

"…You can give up," said the same breathless voice from earlier. Danny was suddenly aware of a mysterious green fog that crept up around him. It made breathing a laborious affair, and he stumbled backwards out of it.

"What are you?" he asked.

The green gas formed itself into the shape of man, more or less. He appeared to be bald, but that was the only feature it didn't take an effort to see. "Haight," the man said after a long wheeze. He made a slight, ironic bow and took a breath to continue. "Hermes Haight. …I was the executioner at Abbott before I…" He seemed to sneer, although it was hard to tell, and laughed sardonically. "…died…"

Finally, someone who was willing to talk! Danny took the barest step forward, as close as he was willing to get to the noxious fumes, and demanded, "What have you done with my family?"

"Me?" Haight gestured toward himself, the very picture of innocence. "I haven't done anything…This is Silver's game. I'm just…a player."

"What do you mean, 'game'?"

Rather than answer, Haight simply smirked. "…I liked how you took care of those mainliners, by the way. You have a real gift for killing…"

"I'm not a killer!" Danny informed him.

"…Not yet, perhaps. But you're still young." He turned and jumped into the chasm.

Danny rushed to edge and shouted, "I'm not a killer, and I'm never going to be!"

"We'll see," laughed Haight.

A rumbling noise effectively stopped the conversation, and Danny turned to see the ground being pushed up as something moved forward at a high speed beneath it. It was reminiscent of the cartoons that featured Bugs Bunny traveling to Acapulco, or wherever it was he was always trying find. The phenomenon knocked over several trees as it passed by or under them, one of which conveniently spanned the gap. The boy decided not wonder at his apparent good fortune and ran across before the burrower could attack him. He thought he heard Haight's breathless laugh, but it could have been his imagination.

A breeze sprang up to rustle the brush and fallen leaves, bringing with it the Voice from the Sky. _I must confess to some confusion,_ it whispered.

"And what would that be?" Danny asked vaguely. He didn't bother to look around or stop walking.

_What are you, _niño

He thought about that for a while. In the end, he decided it couldn't hurt to tell the truth. "I'm half human and half ghost."

El interesa_. Does that mean you're half dead?_

He glared at nothing in particular as he answered dryly, "Pretty much." Now, he knew what Sam and Tucker must feel like whenever they tried to talk to him while he was invisible. It was a distinctly unnerving experience to speak with someone who wasn't there.

The breeze seemed to sigh. _So young to be half dead. I wonder what the future will hold for you._

Danny stopped and looked around. "What are you talking about?"

An image appeared in the road before him of himself, in human mode, standing before a grave stone. He expected to see his own name on the stone; he had already figured he would become a full ghost when he died. He shrugged and walked closer.

It was Jazz's name on that stone. The date of death was about fifty years in the future. Danny paled at what _El Fantasma_ was implying. _Will you grow old and die one day?_ it asked, voicing the question he didn't want to think about. _Or will you remain a_ pequeño muchacho_ forever?_

He ran through the image, not caring where he was going as long as it was away. What a stupid thing to ask, he thought. Of course he would grow up! He had proof in his arch enemy Vlad Masters. Vlad had been half ghost for twenty years or so, and he was still aging as normal.

Danny stopped, out of breath, to laugh at himself. The voice was playing games with his mind, nothing more. He resolved not to pay attention to it next time and looked at his surroundings

He found himself in some kind of concrete building with broken, rusted gates at both ends. There was a fenced off area around what must have been the control panel for the gates. Nearby were some steel crates; on top of one and looking very out of place was an old 16mm movie projector. As though controlled by an invisible projectionist, the spools began to turn, and the flickering yellow image of a doctor was projected into the empty space before Danny. He a blood (the boy assumed it was blood) covered apron, rubber gloves, and a round reflector on his head, just like the stereotypic holdover from the early nineteen hundreds. The man looked himself over, glanced at his projector, then looked at Danny and nodded once.

"Ah, that's better!" he said in a jovial English accent. "You would not believe how difficult it can be to make these things work sometimes, especially when they keep getting destroyed by slayers. Annoying creatures. Now, where was I? Ah, yes! My name, my dear boy, is Dr. Killjoy. I trust you're enjoying your stay on our fine island." Danny opened his mouth to disagree, but Killjoy just kept talking.

"I must say, you're not quite as interesting as my last patient. Poor man. Multiple personalities, but I can say no more. Doctor/patient confidentiality and all that. Still, I trust you will prove an interesting challenge being half dead as you are. Tell me, my boy, do you often feel the need to play the hero? Does it alleviate those feelings of insecurity?"

Danny stared for a second or two until he realized Killjoy was actually waiting for a response this time. Then he stared for a few more seconds out of the sheer ludicrousness of the situation. "I don't have time for this," he said at last.

"A pity. So many of my patients resent my treatments at first, but I dare say they all come around in the end. Or they die. A shame really. The human body is far too fragile sometimes for the treatments the mind requires."

Danny inched around him, heading for the far exit. "Right. Look, I have to go save my family from a psychopathic disembodied voice, so if you'll just excuse me."

"Ah, yes. Darling Silver." Danny stopped and turned back in the hope that he may yet get some useful information. "One of my more fascinating case studies. Well, off you go, then. Oh, one last thing! Where is my head these days? You may find it prudent to make your way to my institute. It's just past Abbott; you can't miss it."

The film wound down, the light flickered out, and the doctor was gone. Danny stared at the place he had been standing in mild confusion. It wasn't Killjoy's appearance; he'd seen far stranger things. It was the "good" doctor's mannerisms: the way he stood, and the gestures he used. It reminded Danny of his friend Kat somehow. Then there was the fact that it was impossible to get a word in edgewise with the man. It was very unsettling to be involved in a conversation that was really just a monologue.

Back in the open air, Danny took a moment to look at the sky. A break in the clouds showed a more or less half moon on which the darker side was overpowering the light. Eerily fitting, somehow. Looking back down, he saw his parents standing in the middle of the road. "Oh, come on!" he yelled at the sky. "I'm not falling for it!"

They were still there. Danny sighed, clenched his fists, and prepared to walk right through them if necessary. He knew they weren't his real parents because they would have started yelling and trying to find their ghost hunting weapons at the sight of the Amity Park ghost boy, Danny Phantom. The fact that they continued to stand there was a dead giveaway.

Maybe he shouldn't use that particular term anymore…

"Danny," the image of his mother almost pleaded as he got closer, and he found himself paying attention in spite of his resolve. "You can't save us."

Suddenly, for a split second that seemed to slow into eternity, he saw his mother and father lying on the ground, surrounded by slayers. He couldn't help it; he shouted and lunged forward to save them. Then the moment was gone, leaving Danny to fall to his knees in mingled parts relief, rage, and despair. He narrowed his eyes and shouted to the sky, "I will save them!"

No response. Of course.

Grumbling to himself, he stood and looked around. There was road behind him, road ahead, and trees to either side. He climbed over one that had fallen into the road at some point. He was beginning to wonder if Silver, or _El Fantasma_, or whatever she called herself, had forgotten about him when a slight breeze attacked some nearby foliage.

_Tell me, _niño. _Do you ever worry that you might cease to be human one day?_

"I'm not listening to you," Danny announced.

_I only wonder how a thing like you could live_, she answered in a hurt "tone". _Neither human nor ghost, but an unnatural melding of the two. As a ghost, you don't belong in the world of the living. But no human belongs in the world of the dead. You don't belong anywhere, do you?_

If he was going to be completely honest with himself, the thought had crossed his mind. Where did a creature like him belong? Actually, it had crossed it mind more than once. He was a teenager; angst came with the territory. And unlike most normal teens, Danny wasn't entirely human anymore, which gave him better reason for it than most.

He growled under his breath. Silver was playing on his insecurities, things that only bothered him when he feeling particularly depressed. He wished Jazz were with him. He could always talk to her about these things. At least, now that she knew about him, he could. But failing that, at least he could take it out the slayers that had just come into view ahead.


	4. Chapter Three

Danny tripped over a root and went sprawling. He frantically scrambled forward for a ways before he got his feet back under him and started running again. Behind him, in "hot" pursuit, were three giggling little girls on fire. Inferna, as he recalled, or would later, when he was no longer trying to avoid becoming a char mark on the ground.

They had first appeared as normal children in Puritan attire, each carrying a small doll of some kind. They had smiled and offered to help, then burst into flames and came after him. Apparently, their idea of "help" was to cleanse his soul by incinerating him. He had managed to dispatch them with little difficulty and started to walk past. Then the little piles of ash they left behind upon their deaths had sprung into burning life once again. Three times, he had managed to defeat them, and three times they rose from the ashes. Now, he was just running.

He groaned inwardly as he saw a little guardhouse ahead with a tall closed gate stretched across the road. He would never be able to climb it before they caught up to him, and based on injuries he'd already sustained in the previous battles, he knew he wouldn't survive if they did. He looked around and decided to simply turn at the gate and take off into the woods. Maybe he would find a pond or river or something that would take care of the problem.

Electricity crackled across the gate as Danny got closer. He cried out and threw up his shield as lighting arced out, but it went past him to reduce the creatures to ash. Then it reached out again and blasted the ash into dust. Danny stood where he was; when they didn't come back to life again, he let out his breath and turned to see the gate opening.

Just beyond it was a large man in a prison uniform. Blue electricity arced across his badly charred body. His hair was an indeterminate dark color, and his eyes were smoking holes in his head. He gave off a smell of electrified meat and burning hair that made Danny want to gag.

"You gotta blast the ashes, kid," the man said with a rough voice. He seemed friendly enough.

"Uh…thanks," Danny responded. "Who are you? And why help me?"

"Name's Horace," he answered. He started to hold out his hand and seemed to think better of it. "Haight enjoys Silver's little games, but I'm not a sadistic bastard."

Danny brightened slightly. "So, you'll help me beat her?"

For some reason, Horace found that to be very funny. After a few moments laughter, he wiped a non-existent tear from a non-existent eye and shook his head. "Ah, man. Thanks, kid. I haven't laughed like that ages. Beat Silver…" He chuckled for a bit.

"But you just said…" He trailed off miserably.

"Listen, kid. You ain't the first to come here, and you ain't gonna be the last. No one beats Silver."

The revelation that the Fentons were not the first people on the island in five years was not lost on Danny, but he stowed it away to think about later. Instead, he drew himself to his full height, which was still about two feet shorter than Horace, and announced, "Well, I will! I'm not going to stand by and let her play games with my family's lives!"

Horace scoffed and shrugged. "Well, whatever. I ain't gonna try and talk you out of it. You'd be better just saving your own hide, but it's your funeral. Head through the lighthouse basement and follow the cave system around. Be careful, kid. Haight likes to hang out down there"

"Thanks," Danny said, bemused, as Horace disappeared in a flash of blue lightning. Well, at least he had something resembling an ally in this world gone insane. The lighthouse was easily visible above the trees, even in the darkness. Although it didn't work anymore, there was some kind of light up there. Hoping to see actual people and hoping his hope wasn't in vain, the boy broke into a jog.

He destroyed another Inferna at the base of the lighthouse and looked up. There was definitely light up there, and he thought he saw a person. It was just a silhouette, but it was moving. He grinned and, when the lighthouse proved locked, blasted down the door. Inside looked like it might have been an office at one time; a rotting ladder led up into the tower. Climbing it was rather treacherous, and when Danny reached the top, what was left of it crumbled to the ground. Fortunately, it wasn't that far to jump.

A metal staircase wound up the tower; Danny took the steps two at a time. At the top, he paused momentarily next to the mechanism that had once controlled the light. Judging by the broken knife blades surrounding it, slayers had been up here at some point. He shrugged and stepped through the broken door.

The light came from a lantern hanging on a nearby peg. Pacing a few steps in either direction and back again was the same girl Danny had seen at the docks. "They left me here," she was muttering. "They left me alone."

"Excuse me," Danny said quietly. He took a step forward, and the feeling of time slowing down hit him again.

The girl turned to face him, and he was able to see a few details he had missed. The chains she wore were a rusted red, and they weren't just draped around her. Shackles graced her throat, wrists, and ankles, and length of chain hung limply from each one. "He made me stay here," she hissed angrily. "He wouldn't let me go. Now, I'm all alone."

Then the moment was gone, as was the girl. Danny had dealt with some of scariest ghosts the Ghost Zone had to offer, but something about this place trumped every one of them. His heart pounding, he started to run straight back down the steps, but he managed to regain control of his legs before he got too far. Horace had said there were caves below; the lantern might come in handy. He snatched it off the peg and went back down.

It was oddly fortunate that he should find a lit lantern on top of an abandoned lighthouse after five years. And then there was the tree at the chasm that just happened to fall across the gap. Was someone actually trying to help him here? Could it be the girl in white? She did drop Clem's notebook when she vanished the first time. Maybe she was a ghost. Maybe she was trying to do what she could to help him beat Silver without drawing attention to herself. That would make two ghosts that were afraid of her, which didn't bode well for the Fenton family's continued health.

Danny jumped the ten feet or so from the bottom of the tower to the office and walked around a corner to jump through the door to the cellar. It was darker than he realized it would be, and he was beyond glad he had brought the lantern. He took a few steps forward and realized he could hear the sound of something hissing, like air escaping from something, or…

"So…you made it this far," Haight said. Danny couldn't see him yet, so he walked forward slowly. From what he could see of the next room, there were pipes everywhere. It seemed to be a boiler room of some kind. "There used to be steam in these pipes," Haight informed he boy. "Now…there's only me…"

There was a noise, the sound of metal striking metal at a high speed, followed by a squealing sound. Green gas began to filter through the lantern light as it crept into the boiler room from various vents and pipes. The metal pop sounded again, and some kind of knob hit Danny hard in the arm. It was probably used to shut off the steam once, but it wouldn't help him now. As a half ghost, he could survive without oxygen for longer than any normal human, but he still needed it. He ran across the floor and jumped down a trap door into a cave system. The air was blessedly clear for about thirty seconds.

"Really, now," Haight taunted. "…You didn't think it was that easy, did you…?" No, he really didn't. Still, one could hope. Rather than answer, the boy started running. "You can't escape me, you know…There's a cave-in ahead."

Danny almost stopped; his falter caused him to trip, but he managed to recover. Haight was lying; he had to be. Danny refused to come all this way just to be stopped now. The gas was already all around him. If he turned back, he'd never make it alive.

"Yes…" Haight whispered. "Keep running…It makes the game so much more…interesting…"

Danny ground his teeth as he was forced to slide to a stop. He threw his fists against the rocks as though he could move them by sheer force of will. He was just about to give up and fall into despair at having failed when he noticed a single silver eye peek out from between the rocks. It was impossible, of course; there was no room for the strange girl in there. Yet there she was, staring.

"…Do you know what hate is, Danny?" Haight asked as he manifested. "We all know it here…You must hate something by now. Is it me…?" He seemed to take pleasure in the thought.

Danny shook his head, though in denial of the situation, not the comment. He backed against the rocks and glared angrily. He wanted to retort, but he needed to save his breath for as long as possible. Then, something reached out and grabbed his arm. He gasped, but before he could try to pull away, a handful of burrowers took that moment to dig below the rock and knock in down.

It wasn't luck; the strange girl was trying to help. He clambered across the fallen barricade and resumed his escape, but he was running out of time.

"…You think you have a guardian angel?" Haight asked mockingly. "Old memories can't save you from me…not for long…"

Danny burst into open air and not a moment too soon. He dropped to his hands and knees, coughing and hacking. Finally, he took a shuddering breath and looked back. "…We'll meet again, Danny…" the apparition sneered. "They all fight me…but I always win…in the end..." His laughter echoed eerily as he dispersed into nothing. Danny collapsed the rest of the way onto the ground to rest for a while.

A rattling noise startled him and sent stumbling to his feet just as Dr. Killjoy appeared a few feet away. His projector was sitting on a rock next to the cave mouth. "No rest for the wicked, my boy!"

"What do you want?" Danny grumbled as he plopped back onto the ground.

"Now, is that any way to greet your doctor?" Killjoy admonished. "I'm only trying to help."

"Why don't you go help someone who needs it? Like that Haight guy."

"Ah, yes! Hermes is rather an ongoing case of mine. He's very resistant to my attentions and, alas, there are many places on Carnate that I cannot reach. But! Enough about me; this session is about you! You remind me of a former patient of mine, a very violent man. Solved all his problems through force, you see, and I positively shudder to find you falling prey to that same condition."

Fire exploded along the outer rim of the small canyon Danny was in, completely blocking all means of escape. He jumped to his feet and started blasting as four giggling Inferna burst out of the flames. Killjoy was still ranting happily about this and that; Danny didn't pay any attention. He slipped between two of the girls as they charged past, and was rewarded with painfully burning scrapes across his chest and back.

The other two girls stopped and jumped into the air. Danny destroyed one, but the other succeeded in exploding; he barely got his shield up to defend against the worst of it. One of the creatures rushed straight towards him; he destroyed it, then jumped out of the way as the two that remained started throwing fireballs. He returned fire and succeeded in reducing one to ash before the other rushed him. He dodged as best he could while he finished off the pile of ash and finally turned his attention to the remaining Inferna.

Bruised and burned, he destroyed it and turned to Killjoy, who had disappeared. At some point, one of the Inferna's attacks must have hit the projector; it lay in melted ruins. Danny smirked and turned to figure out how to get out of this flaming mess. There was no water, nothing he could use to put it out. He could see the land beyond, so the wall couldn't be very thick. He sighed miserably and, bracing himself, jumped through to hit the ground rolling. At least the flames didn't latch onto him as a ghost.

Well, he'd been nearly suffocated and incinerated, he was falling over tired, and he was in pain. It was about time for Silver to start taunting him again, wasn't it? He sat down on a fallen log to watch some slayers battle some mainliners.

_Natural born killers, aren't they?_

"What do you want?"

_To congratulate you on a job well done. No one has ever won my game before._

Danny jerked upright in disbelieving shock. "I won?"

_Yes. Step forward and claim your reward._

Smiling brightly, his family stepped from the foliage a little ways down the path. Behind them, the last mainliner finished off the last slayer and went off to investigate something interesting. Had Danny still been paying attention, that might have tipped him off.

He shrugged off his exhaustion to run forward into his mother's open arms. He was about two feet away when an image of the Inferna flashed across his mind, and the image of his family smiling happily was replaced by one of them crying in pain as they were consumed by flames. It was gone as quickly, leaving the boy to collapse to the ground, sobbing.

_You didn't really think it would be so easy did you?_ Silver asked snidely. Her very audible laughter echoed off the canyon walls, and Danny jumped to his feet, enraged. She was here.

"Where are you?" he yelled. "Come out here and fight me!"

_But the game's not over yet, _niño! _You'll see me in the end._

A flash of movement caught his attention, and he started blasting, but to no avail. A sharp pain in his arm distracted him enough to realize that something had been attacking him while he was otherwise occupied. There were three syringes sticking out of his arm; he yanked them out and turned on the mainliner. The poor thing didn't stand a chance.

As Danny glared at the fuming smear on the ground where the creature had been standing, Haight spoke again. "Yes!" he exclaimed, laughing. "You see…? We're the same…you and I…"

"I'm nothing like you!" Danny argued heatedly to the vanishing green haze. Inwardly, however, he was very shaken up. He knew that he had destroyed the creature, but he didn't actually remember doing it. He had been so angry, he hadn't even thought. Was Haight right about him?

He had promised his family he would never turn evil. But what if he couldn't help it? What if he was already evil? He glanced around furtively and resumed his journey in considerably darker spirits.

* * *

A/N: Eh heh...Yeah, the convenient little notebook...I'll confess.That does exist in the game, but I brought it in like that so I wouldn't have to spend the entire story calling them "sword things" and "gun mosters".


	5. Chapter Four

What is the difference between good and evil? It's not the same as right and wrong. To be right means to follow the law, but to be good means to do what's right. On the other hand, if the law is unjust, isn't doing right the evil thing to do? But how can it be good to do what is wrong? Is there even a difference? Do good and evil even exist? Or was it simply perspective?

It has been said that Hitler thought he was doing the right thing when he began the Holocaust. That was an undoubtedly evil event in the world's history. But if he thought he was doing the right thing, then he thought he doing good. And if he thought he was doing good, then by his own perspective, he was good.

So if being good or evil only depended on someone's perspective, maybe it didn't matter what everyone else thought. Maybe it was okay to do bad things as long as you did them in the name of good. But that didn't seem right either. There was nothing good about demolishing two buildings full of people and destroying thousands of lives, no matter that it was done in the name of good. But…

Danny's confused thoughts wound down as he happened upon a metal door. He looked at it uncomprehendingly for a few seconds, wondering what it was doing there. He vaguely remembered walking into another cave; the sight of rock all around confirmed that. So what was a metal door doing in a cave?

He put his hand to the knob to try the lock, and the thing slipped from his fingers and fell backwards to floor, along with the rest of the door. Danny blinked, then slowly smiled and chuckled a little.

"Guess I don't know my own strength," he joked, trying at last to rouse himself from the mood Haight had put him in.

Inside was some kind of concrete bunker. Boxes of ammunition lined the walls, implying that it had been an armory at one time. A set of stairs to the left led up to a metal catwalk that, in turn, led to a hallway. Halfway down the hall, there was a door on one side, and another set of stairs on the other. The stairs were destroyed, so he tried the door first. He thought he heard a voice.

"Hello?" he called tentatively, entering the room. He glanced around, and time suddenly came to a halt. There was the sound of a gunshot, and Danny saw a man in military attire slumped back in a metal folding chair. He held a gun in one hand, and his head was…

Then the moment was gone, leaving an old headless skeleton in an ancient office. Danny yelped and stumbled backwards into the wall across from the door, then slumped to the ground, breathing heavily. For as long as he lived, he thought he would never get that image out of his mind. The sight of the colonel's head…

Danny shook his head and tried to force the vision away. He stared at the open door; he couldn't see the cadaver from here, fortunately, but part of him kept expecting it to come shuffling into view. As desperate as he was to get away, his didn't think his legs would support his weight. His whole body was shaking with fear, and he wanted nothing more than to be violently ill.

Eventually, he managed to get shakily to his feet and sidled two steps along the wall to the alcove with the broken staircase. Still not daring to take his eyes off the door, he continued backing away until the backs of his legs hit metal and he went tumbling head over heels into the ruined stairs. He lay there, breathing heavily for a few seconds, then the whole situation suddenly became hilarious, and he started to laugh.

Part of him knew he was having hysterics, but it was overruled by the rest, which didn't seem to care. He was a kid who had been thrown into this psychotic game of cat and mouse with a psychic who was threatening his family's lives, and he had just seen a vision of a guy whose head had been sp-

Well, anyway, he deserved the chance to be hysterical for a while.

He pulled himself to his feet, still snickering quietly, although he was trying to stop. The edge of the stairs was only a foot or two above his head, so he jumped up to catch it and pulled himself up. They swayed alarmingly, but held his weight fairly well. The door at the top opened onto another hall. He was met by torn poster hanging cock-eyed on the wall. It featured a dark, human-shaped mass with yellow eyes, and the words "He's Watching You." Danny shuddered and headed left down the hall.

A voice from behind a door yelled, "We had nothing to do with it!" Danny paused for a fraction of a second, and decided he didn't really want to know. One vision had been more than enough.

He turned a corner and nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of the girl in white standing at the end of the hall. "I used to love it here," she said vaguely.

"I can't imagine why," the boy muttered.

"So quiet…so peaceful…"

Ironically enough, the stairs Danny had climbed took that moment to give way. He shouted at the crash and held one hand over his rapidly beating heart. As though oblivious to everything, the girl continued speaking. "We used to play here, when we were kids, until his dad caught us. He got such a thrashing for that. But his dad couldn't stop me from coming back."

Danny had been slowly creeping forward during the entire monologue. She didn't seem aware of his presence, as such. She didn't seem to have noticed the stairs falling. In fact, now that he really looked at her, she didn't even really seem cognizant. What was it Haight had said? Old memories? But if she wasn't a ghost and she wasn't aware, how could she be helping him?

He was relatively close when her eyes snapped into focus on his face. "I think that's why he hated me so much," she said in a low voice.

Danny stared at the place she had been standing for several minutes. She was older than he had originally thought. She had seemed almost childlike in mentality the first time he saw her. The second time, he had only seen her for a few seconds, but he thought she was only a little older than he was. This time, he had been able to really study her, and had come to the conclusion that she was at least Kat's age of close to thirty. It didn't give him any insight into who she was, but at least he knew "girl" in white wasn't the appropriate term.

His thoughts were disturbed by a door opening off to his right. He threw himself against the wall, irrationally certain that the colonel was about to come out, hands stretched before him like a mummy. He laughed with relief to see that it was only a pair of slayers and made quick work of them before continuing.

Beyond the door was an office that looked disturbing like the one the colonel was in. Danny forced himself to step into the room, if only to reassure himself that there was no headless corpse sitting in a folding chair. The far wall had been broken down at some point to reveal a shrub and the lowest branches of a tree. The boy sighed gratefully at being let out and walked the rest of the way into the room.

Suddenly, a memory, frozen in time, appeared between him and freedom. An older man with a baseball bat threatened a young boy while a child he recognized as the Lady in White stood by in quiet fear. A voice yelled, "How many times have I told you not to come here, boy?" The image vanished. Danny ran through the hole in the wall as fast as his legs could carry him.

He finally stopped when something erupted from the ground in front of him and knocked him down. It took him a few seconds to realize that he was looking at a marksman as it ripped itself free of the stake that bound it. It took aim and just barely missed the ghost boy.

He sighed and rolled his eyes from the cover of a tree. They weren't that difficult to beat, but it took forever. He waited until the creature stopped firing and leaned out to throw an energy blast at it. Behind it, another erupted from the ground. This could take a while. At some point, a pack of slayers appeared to render some inadvertent help. In the end, he fought four marksman, eight slayers, and a pair of burrowers. Carnate Island really seemed to have a thing for even numbers.

Danny picked his way through the carnage and tried not to think too hard about it. Most of the damage had been done by the monsters battling each other. They seemed to have no problem with their own kind, but any other was fair game. The burrowers were the only ones that didn't seem to care about the other monsters. They looked like a person that had been wrapped up in a gunny sack and bound with chains. They burrowed beneath the ground, hence the name, until they came upon their prey, whereupon they exploded out of it with the chains flailing. They weren't the most disturbing monsters on the island, but they were still pretty bad.

_Now, this is one of my favorite outlooks,_ Silver piped up

"Leave me alone!" Danny yelled.

Completely ignoring him, she continued, _You want to watch out around here. Lots of marksman. This is where the colonel shot three innocent men for treason. _Mala épocasniño. _Bad times._

The boy was not surprised to see, as he stepped into the clearing on the bluff, that it was his family tied to the three posts where the men had been executed. He stared at his feet as he walked by and closed his ears to their pleas for help. They weren't real. When the shots rang out, he cringed and faltered, but didn't turn.

"…Now, what kind of a son are you?" asked Haight's disembodied voice. He sounded amused. "Turning a blind eye to your poor family…"

"Go…away…" Danny growled from between clenched teeth.

The green haze that made up Haight's incorporeal body appeared to pace alongside the boy. "I'm really very curious," he murmured. "How does it feel to know that their lives depend on you?" When no answer was forthcoming, he slid over to Danny's other side. "I've been there, you know…I was the executioner here for a long time. Even now, I'm the executioner…It's a powerful feeling, isn't it? To know that you hold someone's life in your hand…"

Danny stared straight forward and tried to ignore Haight until he finally reached solid road again. On one side, there was a collapsed tunnel, so he followed the road away from it. Haight was still quietly pacing him; he was getting sick of it. "Why are you still here?" he demanded at last.

The executioner laughed breathlessly. "I'm waiting…for you to ask me…"

"Ask you what?"

"…What I'm doing here…"

Danny stopped and turned to face the smirking toxic gas. He was angry, worried, and tired, and he was well beyond sick of this place. He very nearly snapped that he had just asked that question, but decided to humor him on the off-chance that he might learn something of note. He narrowed his eyes. "Okay. What are you doing here?"

Haight shrugged. "Even sadists like me get lonely sometimes…Horace usually sleeps now…Killjoy is a moron…and Silver is seldom any company…There's no one else here, Danny, except you and me. I'm bored…"

"Oh, go talk to yourself," Danny grumbled. He turned smartly on his heel and started walking again. He could sympathize with the attitude; he was getting lonely himself. But he certainly wasn't desperate enough to accept Haight as company.


	6. Chapter Five

There was a gunshot, and then the colonel was there. He held an ancient pistol in one hand; the other was stretched out in front of him, feeling his way along. He had to move slowly because he couldn't see. He couldn't see because he had no head. He had no head because it was…

Danny shouted, tripped, and fell face-first into the dirt, then scrambled to his feet and looked around frantically. He was outside…there was no colonel…it had been a dream.

He willed his heart to stop racing and looked around. Had he actually fallen asleep and kept walking? He had the vaguest memory of putting one foot in front of the other, but everything else was kind of blurry. It was a good thing he had awakened, he saw. He was walking along a cliff, and he didn't really want to find out if he would survive a fall.

There was a guardhouse ahead, and a chain link gate; to the left was a wide chasm, and beyond that, he could just make out the prison wall. The gate was tall and topped with barbed wire. As Danny got closer, it started to spark, and Horace appeared.

"You're doing good, kid," he said. "You're only the third person to make it this far."

Danny brightened considerably at that. "Thanks! How much farther is it?"

"Assuming you can make it through Abbott, you've still got to reach the asylum." He paced a bit, as though he found it difficult to stand still. "Listen, kid. Don't listen to Haight. You ain't no killer, and I should know."

Implying that he had killed before, for which people were often executed. "How did you die?" the boy asked, wanting to verify his hunch.

Horace scoffed and shook his head. "I ain't dead. Nothing's dead here. This place sucks you in and keeps you alive long past when your body's rotting in the ground." Electricity crackled, and the gate snapped open. "If you make it, I'll get that other gate open for you."

"Thanks for your help," Danny called as Horace vanished the same way he arrived. He felt a little better, having someone on his side. With all the horrible things Haight and Silver kept trying to convince him of, it was nice to have someone who contradicted them.

A quiet wheeze heralded the arrival of said lethal toxin. "…Aw, he didn't answer your question…Now, wasn't that rude?" Danny focused his attention on the mainliners that popped up and tried not to listen. "Shall I tell you how he died? …It was me…I'll admit the results were interesting to watch, but the job itself…well…I think someone sabotaged my equipment."

"I don't care, Haight," Danny informed him. He pulled a syringe out of his shoulder and another out of his leg and resumed walking.

"Oh…but you should…Gauge killed his wife on a conjugal. You do know what a conjugal is, right?" He laughed at the lack of a response, but didn't elaborate. "He got a sharpened spoon and cut her all over her body…let her bleed to death…He was sentenced to the chair for that. But his death was botched. I refuse to take credit for it…not that I didn't enjoy being able to throw the switch on him three times."

Now, Danny stopped. "Wait. He got the electric chair, and you had to electrocute him three times?"

Haight grinned. "…Nice, wasn't it? This isn't in the official report, you understand…but he was still moaning and begging for someone to kill him when they pronounced him dead. That kind of pissed me off…they didn't even let me finish the job…"

The image of the colonel flashed across Danny's mind again; he turned quickly. That fact that Horace was a murderer had been overpowered by the story of how he died. He gritted his teeth and stopped again; he had to know, now. "How did you die?"

Haight smiled in fond reminiscence. "I always favored the gas chamber. There's such a purity to it…So one day, I turned it on and walked in. But I didn't die…I…evolved…" He seemed to sigh, although it was kind of hard to tell since he always sounded like that. "…It's a pity, really. They welded it closed after that…" He faded away, and Danny didn't try to call him back.

A realization had formed in his mind. He couldn't vouch for Killjoy yet, but every other death he knew about…to call them horrible would have been an understatement. This place was evil, and it brought out the worst kinds of depraved behavior.

Or was that just an excuse?

_Lethal injection was my favorite,_ Silver whispered. Danny stopped and looked around. He originally thought she was just reading his mind, but now he thought she might actually be following him. He decided to try to keep her talking.

"Is that a fact?" he asked, not really interested, as he scanned the foliage.

_You should have Doc give you his lecture next time you see him. It's really most educational and entertaining. Especially when he has a live subject. Perhaps I could provide him with one…_

A brief vision of his mother strapped to a table with a needle stuck into her arm flashed across his mind. "Don't you touch her!" Danny yelled.

_Of course, not,_ she all but purred. _She is part of your prize, after all. I wouldn't dream of defacing her until you lose._

"I'm not going to lose!"

_Then perhaps you should resume your journey, _pequeño hombre_. I won't wait forever, you know._

Danny waited a few minutes more, but she seemed to have gone. He headed onward, and had to climb over a fallen tree. The thing was so rotted that it had become soft, and chunks of it broke off as he touched it. Halfway over, he must have put his hand down just right because it split in half and dropped him into a wiggling nest of baby termites. At least, he thought they were termites. He hoped they were termites. Gagging in revulsion, he extricated himself and brushed away the squirming white creatures. It didn't help much; his skin crawled as thought they were still all over him.

With a disgusted snort, he rubbed his arms and continued walking. There was no sign of any bridge ahead. It occurred to him to wonder if he could ask. He was loath to actually call Haight, but he needed to know if he should keep walking or find another way across. The last thing he wanted to do was walk all the way to the edge of the island and wind up having to walk all the way back. "I can't believe I'm doing this," he muttered. "Haight! Are you here?"

There was a long wheeze, then, "You're the most interesting thing to watch for miles…of course, I'm here…"

Danny looked around for any sign of the telltale green gas. "How much farther is the bridge?"

Haight continued to not show himself as he replied, "I'll tell you if you answer a question for me." The boy narrowed his eyes and tentatively agreed. "How does it feel…when you end those creatures' lives?"

"What kind of a question is that? They're trying to kill me."

"…So you would say it's…satisfying?"

"Um…no, it…it doesn't feel like anything." He wasn't sure he liked where this was going. Suddenly, the air became toxic, and he backed out of Haight with an irate glare.

"The bridge is just past that hill…You can't miss it, though you may find you'd like to…"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Danny asked, bemused, but Haight merely faded away. He grumbled, then called out, "You know, you could make this easier on me!" No response; he wasn't surprised.

_My, it's getting very cold out…_

"So you are still there?" He continued to stare straight ahead and didn't stop this time.

_Do you feel the cold,_ niño? she asked. The boy gritted his teeth. Unfortunately, she remained undeterred by his silence. _Even I feel the cold; it's a very human thing. But then, you're not human, are you?_

"I am, too!"

_Oh? Tell me, then, _niño_. You don't feel the cold. You don't feel when you kill. So what do you feel,_ fantasma muchacho?_ What do you feel, ghost boy?_

Danny started to grind his teeth. He could feel! So, temperatures didn't affect him when he was ghost mode, so what? And, maybe his sense of touch was a little dulled, but his emotions were perfectly intact.

But there was that one time…Sam had been teasing him about acting differently when he was in ghost mode. She hadn't meant anything by it, and at the time he had laughed right along with her. But sometimes, late at night, when his brain wouldn't shut up and let him sleep…sometimes he came back to that. He did feel different. He felt stronger, more sure of himself, and slightly more inclined to solve problems with his powers no matter how irresponsible it might be.

He was changing, but that much was obvious. What worried him, late at night, was what he was changing into. "Shut up," he muttered wearily. "I'm sick of this game."

Hm?_ What was that, _niño?

"I said give me back my family and let us go, you freak!" he yelled.

_I think you've mistaken me for you,_ Silver replied smugly. _You're the one who's half ghost; I'm still wholly human._

Danny clenched his eyes shut and tried to drown out the sound of laughter. He couldn't even tell if it was in his ears or his head. It was probably both, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that, no matter how much he wanted her to be wrong, she was right. He was only half human, and it was starting to get harder to believe that didn't make him less of a person.

No wonder Silver never lost this game. Her opponents probably committed suicide before they even reached the lighthouse.


	7. Chapter Six

The slayers had begun to attack in ever increasing numbers. At first, Danny had fended them off half-heartedly, his mind still warring between what Silver had said and what he knew to be true. Then more and more of the creatures had appeared, and he had been forced to concentrate on fighting them or risk impalement.

Eight of them rushed him at once; he tried to blast and dodge at the same time, lost his footing, and went rolling down the hill. The world spun crazily around him, rendering conscious thought all but impossible until he landed face first in the dirt. Looking up unsteadily, he saw that he was centimeters away from having broken his neck against a tree. He used it lean against while he stood and started to look around.

What was it Haight had said? "You can't miss it but you may find you'd like to"?

The bridge was black with blood. Dismembered corpses littered the concrete surface, some human and some belonging to monsters. Slayers stood lined up along the edges, their dagger-like arms crossed before their faces. Then the vision dispersed, leaving only bloodstains and scattered bones. Not much better.

The clattering noise of his pursuers' limbs along the asphalt finally dragged the boy's attention from the carnage. The creatures had doubled in numbers; this was getting ridiculous. He took a breath to steady himself, then dashed across the bridge. On the other side, he slid to a halt with a choked shout as the Lady in White appeared directly in front of him.

"It was only a game," she said and vanished. Behind him, a sudden rumbling crash intermingled with the enraged screams of the slayers. Danny turned quickly to see the bridge crumble into the chasm, taking the supernatural hunters with it.

"Thank you!" he yelled, unsure if she could hear him. With a sigh of relief, he resumed trying to convince himself that he was still human where it mattered. The journey back to the prison was uneventful, to his discontent. Unable to fight, he was forced to think.

The problem was simple. Ghosts were evil. Danny was half ghost. That made him half evil. He tried to fight it, but it was too much fun to overshadow the school bully and make him act like an idiot. It was too easy to solve his problems with violence instead of his brain. The more time went on, the more ghost-like he became. What if he wasn't just half ghost anymore? What if he died completely? What if that accident had been slowly killing him this whole time?

Somehow, the knowledge that Vlad was still half ghost after twenty years wasn't helping. Vlad was evil. And what if he wasn't half ghost anymore? What if he was actually a full ghost who could just pass for a human? And more importantly, he was evil. He happily used his powers for his own gain, something Danny found he was slowly falling prey to.

"Hey, kid!" Danny shouted and whirled around to see Horace standing by the gate he had just passed through without even realizing it. He grinned apologetically. "Didn't mean to scare you."

Danny smiled slightly in return. "No, I'm just…I didn't mean to yell…"

"She's getting to you, ain't she?" At the boy's dejected nod, he shook his head and sighed. "Yeah, she does that. Listen, for what it's worth, I know better. I see you standing there, all depressed and stuff. If she was right about you, you wouldn't care. Trust me, kid. I've known Haight for a long time, now, and you ain't nothing like that uncaring bastard. No matter what they try to tell you."

Danny stared at his feet a little while longer. "Did you really kill your wife?"

"I did it to protect her," Horace confirmed. "I cut her so those whack jobs on the outside couldn't hurt her. They called it a crime of passion, and it was. This place…twists everything all out of whack. It got to me; don't let it get to you."

Without another word, he disappeared in a flash of blue electricity. Danny wished he would stay; he could have used the company. He followed the wall around instead of taking the road. There was a lot of brush, but he was able to get through, and it meant he didn't have to face the marksmen he could hear ahead.

At last, he came to a large gate that hung open. An old, rusted bus sat derelict between the two doors; as he watched, it filled up with a familiar green gas, and Haight formed to leer out at him.

"Go away," Danny said as he squeezed past the bus. Perversely, Haight escaped through the cracked and broken windows to begin following him.

"I want to know you," he breathed. "I want to know why you try so hard."

"Because," the boy answered with a bit more force than was probably necessary. "My family's lives are at stake, and I will save them."

"…That's what I want to know…You remind me of the inmates I killed…I used to listen to their final calls; they all said the same things, that it would all be okay…Like they knew something I didn't. What is that? What do you know…?"

Danny shook his head. It wasn't about knowing something. They cared about their families; that was all. They wanted to make what was happening as painless as possible. They just…but that was it, wasn't it? "I know how to care," he answered.

After a few seconds, Haight started to laugh. "You know how to care?" he repeated. "That's it? …All this time I thought it was something…some secret and…it's nothing but emotion?"

His laughter faded away; Danny didn't have to look to know that he had gone. Sadly, his celebration was short-lived as a rumbling noise heralded the arrival of some burrowers. He ran forward and jumped onto a rusted chain link fence attached to some kind of building. At the top, he swung onto the roof, then walked to the other side to get his first real look at the prison yard.

It was divided into sections with a great deal of barbed wire-topped chain link. Concrete watch towers stood imposingly over the yard in certain key points. Stunted brush and foliage had overgrown the yard, but it was still traversable. The boy lowered himself to the ground and struck off across the empty yard.

Most of the fences were broken down. Although the myriad slayers made for a slow and treacherous crossing, he didn't have any real trouble until he reached the other side, where the sound of his sister's voice crying his name drew him into the pitch black interior of Abbott State Penitentiary.

"Jazz?" he called, creeping forward.

The sudden, unexpected sound of children's laughter drew his startled attention to the left, where a very young version of the Lady in White and the boy he had seen in Fort Maleson dashed through a gated threshold, across the darkened lobby, and through a door on the other side. The Lady stepped out as they vanished and stared sightlessly in Danny's direction. Without a word, she turned and walked back through the door. He wasn't sure anymore if he had actually heard Jazz's voice, but the Lady seemed to be trying to lead him somewhere.

As he walked down the hall, a slayer burst out of a door in front of him. He started to simply destroy it, but it didn't even look at him. It turned and ran, as though whatever was beyond the door was frightening even to it. He peeked through the door, but it was just a control room of some sort.

A smashed, rotted wooden table lay on the floor next to a pair of broken monitors. A large window dominated the far wall; the glass had been smashed. Next to it sat a huge generator of some kind. Danny strode across to the window to see a huge, dark room, empty save for a chair at its center and another generator beyond that.

"Is this where you died, Horace?" he whispered, recognizing the electric chair from TV and movies.

_He and many others…_ Silver whispered. She showed him an image of his father strapped in that chair, so vivid that he jumped through the window before he realized it was only in his head. _So I can still get a rise out of you,_ she gloated.

"Leave…me…alone!" Danny yelled. The futility struck him then, and he started to laugh bitterly. In that instance, human or not, he would gladly have reduced Silver to a red smear on the ground like he had done to that mainliner. It was a rage he felt with such intensity that it terrified him. He slid down the wall and sat staring blankly at the chair for a long time, his thoughts and emotions in complete turmoil.

He had never felt that angry before. Even when Vlad was threatening his family, he had never gotten that angry. He looked down at his hands to see that even his ghostly glow was brighter than normal, affected by his rage. But was it rage? Was it just extreme anger? Or was this hatred?

He thought he hated Vlad, but clearly he didn't because Vlad never evoked this kind of response. He had never felt hate before, but that had to be what he was feeling. There was no other word to describe it. He hated Silver for doing this to his family, to him.

Eventually, the feeling subsided to leave him feeling numb and empty. He stood and turned to go through the glass wall that had once separated the E chamber from the viewing room, where witnesses would have gathered to ensure that the condemned actually died. But what good had they done Horace? According to Haight, he had still been alive.

Outside the viewing room, laughter to his right led him down a set of stairs into some kind of basement area. His ghostly glow provided enough light to just barely be able to follow another hall around. Eventually, concrete was replaced by steel grating. He nearly walked off into empty space because he wasn't paying attention, but he roused himself and found the stairs into the sub-basement where he followed some flooded halls around until he reached a dead end.

The wooden ceiling above him had crumbled to the ground at some point, and he could see the upper basement, but it was too high to jump. Some thick cables enabled him to climb up, and he walked through a few hallways into some kind of machine shop.

The two children appeared slightly more grown up here as they sat across the room in quiet conspiracy. The Lady in White stood behind them, watching almost lovingly. She looked up and smiled. "We were so happy back then. He asked me to marry him that day, and I told him I would. We were only ten years old, but we kept our word for eight years. He taught me to love."

Danny took a few steps forward, and the two children vanished to be replaced by a pair of marksmen that stood to either side of the Lady. "And then he taught me to hate."

"They're just old memories, kid," Horace said without bothering to show himself. "You head into the right places, you can still see memories from the three of us. Don't let it get to you."

"Why were the marksmen there?" Danny asked the ceiling.

"That, I can't tell you. I don't know myself."

The boy started to ask who she was, but a scream that sounded like Jazz interrupted him. He ran from the machine shop into a large room lined with six other, smaller rooms. The scream sounded again, louder this time, from the one nearest to him; he dashed through the door, which promptly slammed behind him.

"My soul…left me alone in here…" whispered a hopeless voice. Danny whirled around to bang on the door, but something from outside beat him to it. He backed against the far wall that wasn't nearly far enough as something slammed into the door repeatedly. The whispering voices grew louder and more frantic; he put his hands over his ears to block out the sound, but it didn't help. The thing outside screamed like a slayer and began rattling the door. He thought he screamed, but he couldn't hear himself over the other noise. Then, suddenly, everything stopped and the door flew open.

Danny found himself lying on the floor across some small steps with no clear memory of how he had gotten there. His heart racing and his breathing in ragged gasps, he stood and turned. There was the room; he must have run out and tripped on the steps.

"Good morning…" The boy yelled and tried to twist around, but only managed to lose his balance and fall hard on his rear. Haight laughed slightly and shook his head. "No…It's just not the same as the screams of the dying…"

"What do you want?" Danny demanded as he tried to get his heart rate back under control.

Haight shrugged. "What? I can't check up on you once in a while?"

_Well, it hasn't happened yet, has it?_

The boy froze, hardly daring to breathe as the feeling of hatred threatened to overtake him at that mental voice. It wasn't as bad as it had been, fortunately, but he still didn't trust himself to speak. Instead, he simply turned and walked away. This meant, of course, that he was walking closer to the solitary confinement chambers, but a repeat of that would have been far preferable to dealing with both Silver and Haight.

The center chamber opened onto an office of some sort. It appeared to have been hidden behind a fake wall for some reason. When he entered, time froze to show him a young soldier being reprimanded by the colonel who, thankfully, was not missing a head. Danny fled anyway; the sight of him…like that…had not faded in the slightest. It was the sort of thing he would have nightmares about for months to come. Eventually, he came to a ladder that took him back up to the first floor and yet another hall.

He walked down it to find a way back into the yard and ran gratefully into the open air. The sky was considerably lighter; dawn was approaching. Even the squeal of a mainliner as it oozed out of a puddle behind him was a welcome change from the slayers inside the darkened death house. He followed the fence around until he came to a hole that led down a slope into a wooded area. Green fog was staring to pool around his boots, but he ignored Haight and concentrated on his surroundings. Anything could be hiding behind those trees, although he would probably hear it if it was.

He groaned as a long gasp preceded Haight's voice. "…I feel I should congratulate you…" he wheezed. When Danny failed to show interest, he continued anyway. "You're the second person to make it this far. The guy you beat is over there." A tendril of gas pointed off to the left, and the boy looked in spite of himself.

The body was still in the process of decomposing, but it no longer had anything resembling discernible features. He guessed it must have been an older man because of the ratty and torn business suit it wore. He stared at it, completely numb, for a few minutes, then calmly continued on his way.

Doubtless, he would react to it later.

Haight continued to follow him through the woods. Although he didn't speak again, the sound of his slow breathless gasping was painfully obvious in the silence. Danny ground his teeth, but didn't say anything. He was afraid of encouraging the undead executioner. However, as he crossed to the other side of the fence again, he was forced to say something.

"Didn't I come from the eastern side of the island?"

"…yes…"

"And I walked all the way to the western side of the yard." Haight agreed again. "Right, so…why does the sign above that door say 'East Cellblock'?"

"Because you followed the death house all the back…" he answered smugly. "You should have kept going instead of coming inside here…Too bad you can't get back that way…"

Danny scoffed and started the other way. "Watch me."

"Silver knocked down the ladder." The boy stopped. "…But hey…if you really want to know if you can survive that fall, be my guest…It'll be interesting to watch…"

On the one hand, Haight could have been lying. More importantly, why had the Lady in White led him that way? And why didn't Horace warn him he was going the wrong way? He had too many questions, and no one he trusted to give him the answers. With a disgruntled huff, he about-faced and stalked into the cellblock.


	8. Chapter Seven

"_Why are you doing this to us?" he asked the faceless darkness._

"_Why ask why?" Silver responded. She seemed to shrug uncaringly. "You're here; I'm here. Why not play a game?"_

"_A game?" he cried out, incredulous. "You're playing with our lives!"_

"_That's what makes it fun, and makes the prize worth the game. Lighten up a bit_, fantasma muchacho_."_

_He clenched his hands into fists; her attitude was completely beyond anything he had experienced. There were those who wanted him dead, or something resembling it, at least. They even took delight in the prospect of halting his existence. But this uncaring sadism…no, it wasn't that. It wasn't that she didn't care; it was that she did. They might as well have been playing Monopoly for all his family mattered, but she was enjoying herself._

_He shook with anger so fierce that he saw red. He didn't understand how anyone could be so twisted, so insane, but in that moment, it didn't matter. He fired blast after blast into the darkness, not seeing, not caring what was beyond it until, exhausted, he finally stopped and it dispersed._

"_Oh, look what you did," Silver said chidingly. "Humans do tend to get in the way, don't they?"_

Danny howled his anguish to the empty building. It was a long time before he realized it hadn't been real, but even then, he couldn't stop shaking. His parents…Jazz…

He didn't want to think about it, but his traitorous mind wouldn't let him forget.

He sat up and looked around. After a nearly being decapitated because he was too tired to pay attention, he had borrowed one of the cells for a nap. Pale grey light filtered through the windows of the cellblock; it was probably getting close to noon. A quiet hiss from somewhere nearby finally got him moving. It sounded like a gas leak, and he wasn't it the mood to deal with Haight.

There were no monsters about when he cautiously stepped out of the cell, which was probably a very good thing for everyone. The dream had put him on edge more effectively than even the colonel had. The simple sound of childish laughter almost made the startled boy start blasting at random, but he got himself under control again and followed.

He didn't pay much attention to where they led him; he was too busy reliving the dream in his head. He had no doubts about where it had come from. It had been far too vivid to have been his own creation. Silver had sent it, but what did it mean? Was she getting worried that he might actually win? The thought made him feel a little better, but not much.

Silver may have sent the dream, but it had been his reaction and his alone. He had let his temper get the better of him, and the people he loved had suffered for it. He was no better than the other monsters on this island.

The sound of source-less shouting brought him out of his reverie. "It's the little freak and her freaky little boyfriend!"

It was an adult voice, taunting and harsh. He took a few steps more and the memory revealed itself in the form of three inmates who had backed the two children against a fence. "Let's play a game, little freak," one of them said.

"Leave us alone!"

Danny yelled and jerked back as a pair of marksmen appeared behind the inmates, but they vanished with the end of the memory. He was glad he didn't have to watch the outcome of that one. Looking around, he realized he was in some kind of yard, a recreation yard based on the signs. Some broken exercise equipment was scattered about and most of the fences had been knocked down. It looked like a huge battle between slayers and marksmen had taken place there during the night. He heard the gunshots, but hadn't thought too much about it. He picked his way across the battlefield and entered the west cellblock.

The ceiling had fallen in places. Despite the fact that it was a two story building, sunlight filtered through some of the holes, a sign that the roof had fallen in as well. Rotten ropes hung from the parts of the ceiling that were still intact. Skeletons littered the floor; some of them still wore part of the noose around their necks. Their moth-eaten clothing identified them as guards, but there were a few inmates scattered about as well.

He gradually became aware of a scrabbling noise that stayed just ahead of him. Something, probably a mainliner, howled somewhere. They didn't seem inclined to attack during the daylight. He saw the upper half of a body still hanging from the ceiling ahead. Impossibly, it was still gooey and dripping. He started to go around, and another one dropped down directly in front of him. He fell backwards with a startled shout, and the thing pulled itself back up its noose to vanish into a bloodstain on the ceiling.

"Nooseman," he said aloud in an attempt to calm his nerves. "Rip themselves out of the ceiling…better keep an eye out, I guess."

He made his way across the cellblock to the laundry room where flickering blue light announced Horace's presence long before Danny actually saw him. He did not greet the old prisoner with his usual cheerfulness. "Why didn't you tell me I was going the wrong way?" he demanded before Horace could speak.

The man looked properly abashed as he glanced away. "I'm sorry, kid. I'm doing what I can for you, but if I help you too much, Silver'll just kill your folks."

Danny stared; that prospect had not occurred to him. He nodded tersely. "Can you at least tell why I'm being dragged through here?" he asked in a slightly more friendly tone.

Horace shook his head. "Not really sure, to be honest. But go with it for a while. There's a lot to learn around here if you pay attention."

"Come play with us!" the girl interrupted. Danny looked over to see her and the little boy giggle and run off. When he looked back, Horace was gone. He shrugged and followed.

"You can't catch me!" the girl yelled. She ducked behind a machine, and the little boy ran out from behind a different one to jump into a large hole. The girl stopped at the edge to wait. When Danny reached her, she said quietly, "I always loved that game." For just a split second, she was the Lady in White again, then she was gone.

There was some kind of small tunnel below the laundry room. Mere moments after the boy dropped into it, a cold metal chain wrapped around his throat and threw him into a wall. He jumped to the left as the burrower swung at him, then ran towards it, blasting. It ducked back into its hole and rushed below Danny, knocking him to the ground. Just as he regained his footing, a second one did the same. He blasted the first as it erupted from the ground again, and succeeded in defeating it, then rolled forward as the second one came up behind him. He dispatched it just in time to dodge the attack of a third, but it managed to grab him anyway. It slammed him into the ceiling, the floor, and both walls before hurling him to the ground and retreating. He lay where he was for a while as the creature burrowed around, trying to find him again.

It occurred to him that they couldn't find him if he didn't move, so he was probably safe to stay where he was, at least until some of the pain subsided. He felt like so much mush after that beating; sharp pains shot across his body as cracked bones slowly healed. Fortunately, nothing seemed to have broken. He wasn't sure whether he would heal from that without medical help.

At last, the burrower seemed to grow bored and went away. Danny carefully got to his feet, just in case the thing was still close by, and gradually made his way across the tunnel. He was unsurprised to see the children run ahead and climb back out into what he soon discovered was yet another cellblock.

"Well, I can see why inmates hate prison so much," he tried to joke. It looked pretty much like the one he just left. He followed the children around a corner where he was stopped by another memory.

The girl in white leaned against the wall, her head in her hands. Standing over her was a vaguely familiar-looking bald guard. Then the guard spoke, and Danny knew exactly who he was. "Get them back, Meryll. Don't be so weak."

It was the same voice that been tormenting him this whole time. Not the one in his head; the other one. Hermes Haight when he was alive. And now he finally had a name for the lady/girl in white. "Who was she?" he asked without turning to see what was hissing behind him.

"…A guard's daughter," Haight answered. "She grew up in these halls. A lot of people taunted her, so I…took her under my wing, so to speak."

"I'm sure her parents were very grateful," Danny remarked dryly. He started walking forward again.

Haight followed, of course. "Oh, they could have cared less…but I…cared. She had a great deal of…potential." He chuckled a bit at some remembrance. The boy didn't want to know.

A section of broken wall led him to another recreations yard that was surprisingly clear of human remains and monster carcasses. In fact, aside from the torn down fences, it seemed almost normal. It was only natural, then, that he should be treated to a vision of his family about to be hacked apart by slayers. Danny closed his eyes and clenched his fists as memories from his dream rose up in his mind again.

"You know…" Haight began. "I figured something out about you. You're not like other people…The fall into despair when Silver shows them things, but you…You just get angry."

"I'm not like you," Danny said from between clenched teeth, already knowing where that line of thought was headed.

He was surprised when Haight agreed. "No, you're not. At least, not in that. I don't get angry…People aren't worth it…"

The boy opened his eyes and was grateful to see that he was alone again. If Silver was actually reading his mind, she wasn't sharing the information with Haight. It was true that he got angry, but he was plenty depressed. Probably the only reason he got angry was that he couldn't be any more depressed. He could barely remember why he was still trying, except that his family would be killed if he stopped. They were the only thing keeping him going at this point.

He walked past a burned down shack and entered re-entered the prison. There were no cells here, and young Meryll and her friend led him through a large hole in the far wall and back outside. He lifted an eyebrow.

"Captain Hermes T. Haight Cemetery," he read. "They named the graveyard after you?"

He expected his tormentor to respond in some way, and was pleasantly surprised to be answered by silence. A simple metal arch that announced the name of Abbott's most infamous executioner led the way into a cemetery where even the weeds were dead. Headstones were cracked and faded, and a few of them had fallen over. What little grass actually managed to grow was brown and stunted. On the far left side, an area was sectioned off for the guards. Danny wondered if Haight was buried over there, but didn't go look.

One of the graves sat beneath a dead tree. The coffin appeared to have been pushed out of the ground from below, its lid hanging open. He didn't want to get closer, but he had to walk past it to get out. He wasn't surprised that a memory started up when he got near it.

An old reverend stood next to the now-closed casket, intoning the words of a final farewell. Danny didn't pay much attention, preferring to listen to the low noise he heard beneath the words. As he got closer, he realized it was a quiet moaning of, "Let me out…someone…please…I ain't dead…"

Horace appeared suddenly, standing behind the casket. He looked in Danny's direction without focusing on anything, proving that he was just a memory and not the real Horace. "I wasn't really in here," he said. "I never left the chair."

The boy crept forward slowly as the image vanished, drawn by some morbid curiosity. He expected the corpse to open its eyes and reach up to grab him, but the coffin was empty.

"I think they used to say…" Hermes began. Danny managed not to jump. "…'Horace never sleeps'…What a strange thing to say, wouldn't you agree?"

"Leave him alone, Haight," the real Horace interrupted, standing where the mindless memory had been.

"Or what?" the executioner scoffed. "You'll try to burn me up again…?"

Danny slid out from between the two and walked backwards away from them. As eager as he was to get away from Haight, he wanted to see what would happen.

_Now, boys,_ Silver piped up. _Play nice or our guest will think we're nothing a pack of rabid dogs._

"He is a rabid dog," Horace said to the sky.

Haight seemed to narrow his eyes. "…I resent that…Rabid dogs are mindless, vicious, and insane…"

The old prisoner grinned. "Two out of three ain't bad."

_Oh, this'll be a good one. Maybe you should run,_ niño._ Wouldn't want to be caught in the fireworks, after all._

An image of a small wooden building suddenly being turned into a bonfire flashed across the boy's mind, and he realized that one of their fights had been responsible for the burned shack he passed.

_Horace wielding electricity against a combustible Hermes…_ Silver went on. _Flames went higher than the prison roof. _Muy hermoso._ Very beautiful._

Right.

Well, at least she wasn't throwing in images of his family stuck in that blaze. He left the bickering ghosts behind to follow a small dirt path that ran along a cliff. The image of Meryll appeared to pace alongside for a feet before vanishing as a resounding bang spilt through the air and threw Danny to the ground. Ash and embers fluttered down around him; the cemetery was in flames.

Something vaguely human in form burst out of the blaze, then. He thought it was an Inferna, but when it didn't immediately start trying to kill him, he realized it was Haight. The executioner shook himself in a futile effort to be rid of the flames, and finally succeeded in escaping through the smoke. Danny resumed his journey, hoping Horace was okay.

* * *

A/N: Well, bugger. I was thinking of making a sequel to this one, but I guess I won't make you all sit through it after all. Oh, well. 


	9. Chapter Eight

The sound of an earthquake in progress pervaded the air as half a dozen burrowers dug their way through dirt, water, rock, and, on occasion, each other. Danny stared down into the quarry in trepidation. It was at least a fifty foot drop and the only ladder had fallen into the pit at some point. He thought he could climb the rock face, but that still left the burrowers.

He nodded absently in answer to the chattering Dr. Killjoy, not paying the slightest bit of attention until the man mentioned Meryll. "Wait!" he interrupted. "What about Meryll?"

Killjoy stared disapprovingly for a second. "Yes, I rather thought you were ignoring me," he muttered. "You should try to pay more attention, my dear boy. It could mean your life one day. As I was saying, Meryll used to play here."

"The burrowers didn't bother her?"

Killjoy stopped again; clearly, he didn't like to be interrupted. "They did not exist until five years ago. Really, my boy; do try not to interrupt so often. While I am pleased that you are finally showing an interest, it does make one quite lose one's train of thought.

"Now, where was I? Ah, yes! She came here because it was one of the few places on the island that she could reach where no one would bother her. She always did love her isolation. One could often find her hiding in the solitary confinement cells in the basement; I believe you saw them."

"You could definitely say that…" Danny muttered, turning most of his attention back to the quarry.

The doctor seemed not to hear, and continued jabbering on _ad nauseam_ about things Danny didn't really care about. It had all started simply enough. Killjoy had appeared in his usual manner for one of their "sessions". In order to get the topic off his mental state, the boy had asked about the quarry. This had led to a prolonged lecture about the cave-in, which was followed by his views on suffocation as a means of death. He didn't approve.

Danny brought himself back to the present enough to realize that Killjoy was glaring quietly. "I really should go now," he said.

The doctor hummed disapprovingly. "Very well. But do not believe for a second that I will simply leave you alone, my dear boy. Your mind is an abyss of despair, and as your doctor, it is my job to remedy that." The projector wound down, and Danny rolled his eyes. At least he wasn't Spectra…

He looked down into the quarry where adult Meryll stood, looking back up. He thought he could probably go around the quarry, but she seemed to want him to follow her inside. Why? Who knew, but Horace had said he might learn something by following her. He spared a moment to wonder why Silver was letting her lead him around, then shrugged and started climbing down. He could figure it out later.

A few feet from the bottom, he stopped and twisted around slightly. There was a rock he thought he could reach if he ran; from there, a wide ledge would take him practically to the cave mouth. He turned a little bit more so as not to trip and fall when he landed, then jumped to hit the ground running.

Burrowers lunged out of the ground behind him, but he managed to outdistance their chains. He dodged to the left as one headed straight for him and ducked as it came up spinning like a weed whacker. Another burrowed by in front, and he jumped over the disturbed ground, then he was scrambling up onto the rock and praying they couldn't reach. One or two, he could have handled. Three would have been a problem. Six were way too many.

After a few minutes to catch his breath, he headed over to the cave. Meryll had vanished again, but he was well used to that. The inside of the cave was as dark as a tomb; the afternoon sun that barely shone through the clouds did not reach very far. There was a pale, flickering light ahead that reminded him of a candle. When he got closer, he saw young Meryll again for the first time since he left the prison.

She sat on the ground, alone, humming quietly to herself. She was facing away and didn't look around as he approached, but she did start to speak. Or rather, to chant. "I had a little birdie, and her name was Enza…" she sang quietly. "I opened up the window, and in flew Enza."

Danny kept walking, waiting for time to slow. He had gotten past her and turned around in confusion that it hadn't before it did. A man appeared standing behind her. Even though the moment was frozen, he seemed frantic. "Don't you get it, Mer? She's dead."

"Mother isn't dead. She's right here."

Danny blinked. For just a split second before the image vanished, he thought he saw a third person. He dismissed it as his imagination and turned to climb a metal stairway out of the pit.

…_And in flew Enza…_ Silver whispered. _The flu was a very deadly disease, you know._

The boy ground his teeth as three identical coffins flashed across his vision. "Is that how Meryll's mom died?" he asked, truly curious.

Silver seemed to find that amusing, but then, she took great delight in the thought of his family being dead, too. _Why, yes, as a matter of fact. There was an outbreak here on the island. They ran out of the vaccination and about twenty people died before they could get more._ She went silent for a while, then remarked in a more sly tone, _I caught it, too. I bet you wish I'd been among their number._

"Yep." Really, what reason was there to lie? They both knew it. It was strange, actually. Once he had come to terms with the fact that what he was feeling was, in fact, hatred, he saw her a bit differently. He was no longer inclined to yell at her, for one. It was difficult to explain, and he didn't want to dwell on it long enough to try. But he almost missed her when she wasn't tormenting him. It was a very twisted emotion that kind of reminded him of how he felt about Paulina, which only served to further convince him that he was actually evil.

That, of course, brought up the question of why he cared about his family in the first place. If he was evil, why didn't he just turn around and leave, and save his own skin. He didn't feel evil, as such, but would he know what that felt like?

Maybe it was high time for a heart to heart with evil incarnate. As Danny stepped from woods back into cave, he called out, "Haight? You still around?"

His answer came in the form of a suddenly very noxious atmosphere. "Shame there aren't more monsters around…" Haight mentioned idly. "Watching you kill them is…invigorating…"

Danny glared for a second, then resumed spelunking. "I've been thinking," he began.

"A dangerous pastime, I'm sure…"

The boy rolled his eyes before he continued. "What's the difference between good and evil?"

The silence was almost shocked; at the very least, Haight was actually at a loss for words. Unfortunately, it didn't last. "…You asking me?" he breathed.

"Well, I figure if anyone knows real evil on this island, it's you."

There was another prolonged pause before the executioner good-naturedly said, "I resent that."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "You are more than happy to kill without any kind of regard for human life, and you don't like to be called evil?"

"…I prefer the term…'anti-social'…"

"According to Jazz, anti-social behavior is…uh…often a sign of sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies."

"Are you calling me a psycho?"

"Yes."

He was beginning to wonder if he had gone a bit too far with that, but Haight started to laugh. "…well…said…" he whispered, almost inaudible from lack of air. He took a shuddering breath to resume speaking. "All right. I don't believe in evil. All men are the same, deep down…We all want to kill, but society discourages us."

"I don't want to kill anyone," Danny refuted.

"And yet you do…do you not?" He drifted around in front of the boy, who simply walked through him. "…Not being solid is rather irritating from time to time…" he grumbled. Louder, he went on. "Remember that mainliner last night? I saw the rage on your face…you wanted to kill Silver, but you couldn't, so you slaughtered the mainliner instead…"

Maybe calling Haight had not been the best idea. A darkened wall appeared ahead, and Danny followed it to the right. He heard his unwelcome guest snicker quietly, but didn't ask why. Suddenly, the area was flooded with lamp light that revealed a ceiling in the process of collapsing on a handful of inmates. There was a lot of screaming that the boy couldn't make out, but he did mange to hear one guard say, "…they're not worth the trouble. Let them rot."

The darkness returned. Danny gulped and tried to calm his breathing. "So…you saw it…?" Haight asked innocently.

The boy gave him a withering glance and followed the wall the other way. "The quarry cave-in, I take it?"

"It was when Abbott was still being built…Don't worry; I'm not Killjoy. I'll give you the Reader's Digest version…" He chuckled slightly and shook his head. "Basically, the inmates were crushed when the ceiling collapsed, and the C.O.s just let them rot…They got lynched and skinned alive for it, too…wish I'd been there…"

"Whose side would have been on?" Danny couldn't help but ask.

"…Why choose a side? I just want to watch…"

The boy should have seen that coming. Luckily, Haight took that moment to leave him in peace for a while. Sadly, the answer he was looking for remained elusive. Or maybe he just didn't want to admit the truth.

He found his way onto a steel catwalk that shook and rattled as he walked until he was practically crawling. He froze as something brushed across his back and twisted around to look up at the nooseman that was trying to reach him. It didn't seem able to get any lower, for which the boy was grateful. He made it across without any other instances, and, one winding tunnel later, finally found his way back under dismally grey skies.

_Aw…there were supposed to be marksmen in that tunnel._

"I guess they've learned to be afraid of me," Danny said egotistically. Audible laughter greeted that statement, and he quickly turned toward the source. If she was here, then she wasn't where she could hurt his family. He already knew they were in the asylum, so if he could catch her now, he wouldn't have to worry about them anymore.

He took a few steps toward the brush he thought she was hiding in; something moved, then something silver burst out at him and knocked him to the ground. He recovered to find himself facing a slayer made out of silver metal. It ran the edge of one arm across its tongue, then wagged it slowly back and forth.

_Ah, ah, ah, _niño, Silver chastised. _I told you, not until the game is over._

This was Silver? He shook off his astonishment and threw an energy blast at her. Hadn't she claimed to be human?

She back flipped over the shot and hissed. _Fine, then. I was getting bored anyway._ A metal arm made a "come hither" gesture. _I'll humor you, this once._

"Humor this!" Danny shot back, with an accompanying blast.

Silver lunged to the side, then dropped to all fours and charged forward. The boy jumped to the side, but this wasn't a normal slayer. Instead of simply sliding to a stop, she reached out and sliced a long gash in his leg. He wasn't entirely certain what she had done, but it suddenly wouldn't support his weight anymore. In fact, it didn't want to move much at all and was quickly going numb. He edged backwards as she advanced, trailing one arm across the ground, until he hit the edge of a steep incline and couldn't go any farther.

The slayer dropped to all fours and walked right over the top of him to place the point of a single blade against his throat. He closed his eyes and wondered if things would look any different when he was dead. He was treated to an image of himself hanging from that blade, then the point withdrew. When he dared to open his eyes again, she was gone.

He dropped his head back against the dirt and was supremely grateful that he hadn't been human at that moment. He would really have embarrassed himself.

* * *

A/N: _/grins/_ So you wish it, so shall it be! I've got another story I'm writing now, so the sequel may or may not be next. Probably not, in which case, it will be the one after. The Suffering is on PS2 and X-Box...ah, PC I think...but not the GameCube.


	10. Chapter Nine

_The silver slayer stalked around the edges of his vision, but he didn't turn. He wasn't going to let her bait him, not this time. She spiraled closer and closer until she finally came to stop less than a foot from his face._

"_Look at you, _Señor Duro," _she mocked. "Think you can resist me this time?"_

_He suddenly realized Silver was not Spanish. He had taken it for granted that she was, but her voice held no trace of an accent. That hadn't occurred to him until just now, when he was trying to ignore her. A dull ache crept up his leg where she had slashed him while he was still awake, and he realized she was trailing a blade along the gash._

"_Aren't you going to talk to me?" she pouted. "We can't play unless you talk to me."_

_What did that mean? Wasn't she reading his mind? How else could she be sending him this dream? Although he was suddenly dying to know…and maybe he should not think that term again…he remained silent in the hopes she would go away sooner._

"_Very well,_ niño._ Let me give you this to think about."_

_She backed up until she faded away, but before he could celebrate, something cold and metallic closed around his neck. He moved to grab onto it, and shackles appeared around both of his wrists; they wouldn't let him reach any farther up than his elbows. Two more appeared around both ankles, but they were rather redundant. Just when he thought he couldn't be any more constrained, chains snaked around his body, wrapping him in painfully tight coils. He couldn't breathe; he couldn't move._

_The pale grey fog of the dreamscape was replaced by a cold cavern. Rain splattered onto his head from a chimney in the rock. He struggled, and a dark shape hit him hard across the mouth. It seemed to cuss at him in Spanish, but he couldn't understand more than a word or two. Finally, it hit him one last time and turned to leave._

"_Don't leave me here!" he yelled. It was at that moment that he realized he was reliving Meryll's death. Her husband turned and sneered something, then left._

Danny gasped for air and collapsed into a coughing fit, then rolled out of Haight and regained his footing. His leg was still weak, but it would suffice. The executioner shook his head slowly and seemed to sigh. "Interesting dreams?" he asked quietly.

"You mean Silver doesn't share?" the boy responded scathingly.

"Silver…" He stopped to inhale, then started over. "Silver is Silver…what can I say?"

"Goodbye would be a start," Danny pointed out.

Haight sniffed in mock arrogance. "…I know where I'm not wanted…And normally I would stay simply because of that, but for now…I'll leave you. I just thought you'd like to know…" He drifted toward a tree and pointed up into the branches. "You're now officially in the lead." The boy stood where he was for a while. He didn't really want to look, but something drew him there anyway.

Not too long ago, a man and his wife had gone for a sail. A storm had sprung up, and they were presumed dead. Danny now conclusively knew their fate, or the husband's at least. The wife had probably been Silver's hostage. The husband had climbed into this tree and starved to death. He hadn't been here long, or at least, hadn't been dead for long.

Danny tried to back away too quickly and tripped over his weakened leg. The man's eyes were open, as if in horror at what he had seen. Knowing Silver, it had been probably been visions of his wife dying in innumerable ways. As if to remind him, the image of his family standing in the middle of a pack of marksmen flashed across his eyes, and he stood. He had a mission.

It was getting dark again, so he limped carefully along. His leg would finish healing soon enough and standing still for long on this island was suicidal behavior. He followed the path back into a manmade canyon and stopped short to see Meryll standing a dozen feet away.

"The inmates were trapped in the cave-in," she said vaguely. "But it didn't end there. It's still going on here, now, today, everywhere…" She didn't look as the boy moved forward, but continued talking as if to herself. "We used to play here, until his dad found us. It wasn't that it was dangerous; it was that he was with me." He was less than a foot away when time froze to show him young Meryll crying as her friend was beaten mercilessly by his father with a length of chain. "It was only a game," she whispered.

Danny shook his head. He thought he was beginning to piece together Meryll's life. Obviously, she had been persecuted because of her looks. Her friend had been horribly abused by his father. That must have been the basis for their friendship. But as they grew, her friend-turned-husband had begun beating her; it was probably all he knew. When everything had happened five years ago, he must have chained her up and left her to die. Why he would have done that, the boy couldn't even begin to decipher. Nor could he figure out exactly how Haight factored in.

He decided to think about it later as he came upon the tree where five C.O.s had been lynched and skinned alive. He knew it was that particular tree because the event had been recorded for posterity. The image vanished as he got closer, and Silver took that moment to replay it her way.

Danny clenched his fists. "Cut it out!" he yelled, turning away from the sight of his family hanging from that branch. He saw something move quickly behind a tree and began blasting at it. She hadn't been expecting him to turn; maybe she couldn't read his mind, after all.

A silver metal marksman lumbered out from behind the tree and began firing. The boy ducked and rolled behind the lynching tree, then leaned out to fire at it again.

_You really never learn, do you?_ Silver mocked.

"What are you; some kind of shape shifter?" Danny called back from behind his cover.

_Not at all. What I am and what you perceive me as are two very different things. Haven't you realized yet I can affect what you see, what you feel?_

And suddenly, he figured it out. His leg had never been injured because he hadn't been attacked by a slayer. He wasn't being attacked by a marksman now. He closed his eyes and took a breath to center himself, then walked calmly into the open and went on his way. He gritted his teeth against the fiery pain of bullet wounds, but didn't stop. As soon as he got out of sight of her, he collapsed onto a rock, as much at relief from the pain as because his nerves were completely shot.

A silver metal mainliner crawled into view and juggled a syringe in one hand. Ingenioso_…_ she praised him. _Very clever. I won't try that again, will I?_ He watched as she crawled around a corner and made no move to follow until a real marksman showed up.

Once it had been dealt with, he followed the path Silver had taken to find himself at an impasse. He knew where he needed to be because Meryll was waiting for him there, but it was a thirty foot jump over a fifty foot drop at the very least. He walked up to the edge of the rusting steel platform and looked around, as though the answer would reveal itself.

There was a rusted old crane; below was the area of canyon he had traversed before he reached the lynching tree. The cliff face leaned over the canyon, so he couldn't just climb across. And there was no way he would ever be able to jump that gap.

He ran his hand across his face as a clicking noise informed him that he had missed seeing one of Killjoy's projectors. "Not in the mood right now," he said without turning.

"Ah, hostility," the doctor sighed. "It shall never grow old. So many of my patients award me that attitude at first, yet I persevere! The road of the healer is a lonely one indeed-"

"You're an actor!" Danny burst out. The gestures, the tone, the vague reminder of his thespian friend Kat; it all made sense.

Killjoy stopped, torn between irritation and amusement. Amusement won. "Indeed, my dear boy," he laughed. "Are you perhaps more learned than my original assumption?"

"I have a friend who's an actress," the boy explained.

"Really? Perhaps you could introduce us some day. I do so long for a real actor to play opposite me sometimes. Alas, so few of them have any talent. Ah, but you have distracted me, you naughty boy. We are here to talk about you, not me. Tell me, lad. What do you feel when Silver shows you visions of violence?"

Danny huffed and turned back around. It was worth a shot. "I feel like trying to get over there," he said, pointing across the chasm.

Killjoy sighed theatrically. "Very well. Answer me this one question, and I will aid you in your crossing."

He didn't want to answer. He didn't want to think about it. When Silver showed him things, he wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around her throat. He had never before known what it truly meant to want to kill someone. Finally, he said simply, "I hate her."

"There, now! A breakthrough at last! That wasn't so difficult, was it? Perhaps you've more to share?"

Danny glared. "No! Now, I want you to tell me how to get across."

"Oh, very well," the doctor replied heavily. "And things were going so well. You should consider talking to me, dear boy. I understand you would prefer to share these personal matters with your usual psychiatrist, but she is rather tied up at the moment. Nevertheless!"

Killjoy flickered out and the projected light became a bridge that spanned the gap. Danny walked up to it dubiously. "You have got to be kidding me…"

"Consider it a leap of faith, my boy. It is the way across, although I expect you shall be here for some time. You clearly do not trust me enough yet. Alas, while my patience is limitless, your family's lives are not."

The boy leaned down and put his hand against the projected light. It wasn't solid, but… He sighed, closed his eyes, and started walking. After what seemed like an eternity, he felt metal under his feet again and opened his eyes.

"Oh, bravo!" Killjoy called. "Now, perhaps you would like to-"

"Nope," Danny cut him off. He turned and walked away, leaving the doctor to wind down alone.


	11. Chapter Ten

Danny finished off a pair of burrowers and turned back to the wall he had been inspecting. It was old brick and twenty feet tall at least. There was no gate, which probably meant he wasn't supposed to go through here. He let his eyes trail a little higher to see the moon; it was a very depressing sight. The darkness was slowly overtaking the light, almost as he watched it seemed. It was very metaphorical of his mood.

He climbed a few rocks to the top of the wall and stood for a while. This was it, the asylum. He couldn't see it from here, but he knew these were the grounds. A pond took up most of his current field of vision with an overgrowth of brush and trees covering the rest. He lowered himself to the ground onto something that crunched underfoot, then gasped and stumbled backward as he realized he had stepped on an old skeleton. Shaking his head at his reaction, he'd seen much worse things, he turned to follow the pond around.

He saw Meryll standing on the shore by a rotted bridge that led to a collapsed gazebo. She didn't turn as he approached, and he stopped to listen. "We were married right here," she said quietly. "There was a church in town, but I always loved it here. I wanted them to fix the gazebo, but they wouldn't, so we had the service on the shore, under the night sky. And while the preacher spoke, I stared at the moon. Torn between the dark and the light, it seemed…appropriate."

She vanished, and Danny looked at the sky again. He could well imagine what the moon looked like the night she was married. As he continued, he found himself wondering when her husband first started hitting her. The beatings must have been very severe to change her from a happy, laughing child into mournfully depressed adult.

He stopped suddenly as he caught his first glimpse of the Carnate Institute for the Alienated. It was a massive, two-storey brick building surrounded by a hedge-covered wall. There were old-fashioned lanterns spaced across the wall, although they didn't work anymore. He let his eyes move up past the gothic architecture to the roof, where he could just see a figure looking down at him from what must have been the attic before it was smashed in by something.

"Silver…" he muttered in a harsh whisper.

_Welcome_, niño,_ to my humble abode. Try not to let Doc's pet slayers get you on the way in._

The front door was hanging off its hinges. Inside, there was a staircase to the left, a hall straight ahead, and an open door on the right. He could see a viewing room like the one in Abbott, but beyond it was a laboratory of some sort. He started to dash up the stairs, but they collapsed under his weight. When his vision stopped swimming around, he was in a cellar.

_Watch that first step…_

"Gee, thanks," Danny grumbled as he pulled himself to his feet.

Flickering yellow light announced the unwanted presence of Doctor Killjoy. "So you've come at last, my dear boy!"

"I'm not here for you," Danny said as he turned to survey his location. Rusted chains hung from the walls and the low ceiling. A series of bookshelves lay along one wall, knocked over like dominos. There was a single door; as he walked toward it, a second projector started up and displayed a gate barring the way. Try though he might, he couldn't get the door open. At last, he turned back to Killjoy, who had spent the intervening time quoting something or other.

He glanced at Danny and finished the line, then crossed his arms. "I trust you are through ignoring me?" Without waiting for a response one way or the other, he launched into his spiel. "If you truly wish to save your kin, you must first save yourself. You can never hope to defeat Silver with this attitude of melancholy. You must break free of the restraints she has placed upon you. I can give you your freedom, my dear boy, but you must first prove to me that you truly want it."

The clattering of metal on stone coincided with the doctor's disappearance, and Danny realized Silver hadn't been kidding about "pet slayers". He threw himself out of the way as one charged forward and shot an energy blast at it, then ducked around the second one. The third one didn't even get the chance to attack; when the first one charged forward again, Danny stepped out of the way at the last second, causing it to impale its brother. He blasted it a second time and the two slayers collapsed into a tangle of limbs. The remaining creature was easily defeated; the projector blocking his way wound down.

The next room was very familiar to him. He looked around to see Meryll crouched on the floor, her chains attached to the walls. She stared straight ahead, her hands stretched out as far as she could reach. "Don't leave me here!"

Danny's breath caught as the image vanished. He expected to see a skeleton chained to the wall, but even the chains had vanished. A few links lay scattered on the floor, twisted and bent open. He shook his head in confusion; if there was no body, Silver didn't die here. Then where…

"Tell me, my dear boy," Killjoy said, as though from the very walls themselves. "What do you think makes a person behave in the characteristics defined as good or evil? Is it simply that we are born a certain way? Or does the environment we live in affect what choices we make? Perhaps it is both. Or perhaps it is something…more…"

_I was born on this island…_ Silver whispered. _I was born the day Horace…heh…died. For lack of a better term. There had been a riot, so the hospital wing was full. Mother was at Abbott to be one of the witnesses. I was born in the morgue while Horace begged for someone to kill him and get it over with._

The boy chose not to respond as he climbed back upstairs. Really, what could a person say to a confession like that? Meryll met him at the top of the stairs; she turned right and walked down the hall where he lost sight of her. He past a few doors before he reach some kind of parlor. Judging by the arrangement of furniture and the fact that Killjoy was projecting himself into an easy chair that faced away from the door, it must have been where he conducted sessions once.

The door swung shut behind him and was barred by a flickering gate. A third projector created a fire in the fireplace. "Come, my boy. Sit. Tell me your troubles and marvel at the solutions I will affect."

Danny sighed and wandered around the room for a bit first. He did not want to talk to Killjoy. It occurred to him that he could simply destroy the projectors and escape, but he finally decided to try to learn something. He sat gingerly on a rotted couch. "All right, now what?"

Killjoy leaned back and manifested a clipboard. "Now, you tell me," he answered.

The boy stood again. "I don't have time for this," he said fervently. "I have to rescue my family."

"Oh? Tell me, then. Why do you have to rescue them?"

"Because Silver's going to kill them!"

"And why should that matter to you?"

"Because…" he started to yell, then stopped. In a somewhat quieter voice, he continued, "They're my family. And maybe Mom and Dad are a little weird, and maybe Jazz is too meddling and overprotective, but…I still love them. And I have to save them!"

Killjoy stood as well and set his clipboard on the table between the chairs where it promptly vanished. "Love, then, is it? Then perhaps you are not as bad as you think, hm?" The projectors wound down, and the door swung open again. As Danny stepped out, the door on his left swung open and he heard a pronounced crash. The boy rushed forward and glanced inside.

It was a dining room. A fireplace graced one wall, and the door to the kitchen was opposite it. A long table sat in the middle of the room; it had broken in half at some point. As he stepped inside, a memory began. Meryll stood between a pair of marksmen, one hand outstretched, but it wasn't the plaintive gesture he usually saw. It almost looked like an attack directed at her husband, who hung in the air, frozen at the moment of being thrown into the still intact table.

"You can't leave me," she said forcefully. "No one leaves me."

Danny wasn't sure what to make of that. It looked like Meryll had been the aggressor, but she was the victim. Wasn't she? A sudden growl drew his attention to the end of the hall where a pair of marksmen were disappearing around the corner.

_Don't you just love the marksmen? I love guns and all things related to them. I have two, you know. Silver plated colts. Cobra and Mongoose; the eternal struggle…_

The boy suddenly had a very bad feeling. He peeked around the hall to make sure the marksmen had gone, then followed the hall back to the foyer. He was more careful going upstairs that time. The hall led him past a series of padded rooms. A few of them were hanging open; while some were simply empty, others were covered in old blood. One gave him the image of a mother cradling her child before it vanished to be replaced by their bones. A steel crate sat at the end of the hall, blocking a closed door.

"Remember why you are here, my boy," Killjoy admonished without showing himself. "Remember why you feel the need to fight. Remember who you are behind the wall you have built as defense against our little Silver."

A trap door swung down just above the crate, and Danny climbed into the attic. Meryll met him at the top of the stairs, her expression one of the purest joy. She turned away and walked to the other end of the attic to vanish in front of a person who was sitting in the shadows just beside the moonlight from the hole in the roof. It was a woman who sat leaning back against the wall, as though in sleep. Her feet were bare; her blue jeans were so faded they had become white. Around her ankles was a pair of shackles.

The woman stretched and stood. Her wrists and neck sported shackles as well, and she wore a simple white T-shirt. Her waist-length white hair had been cut to just under her ears, but her eyes were the same shade of ice blue. "I knew you would make it," she said with a warm smile.

"Meryll…" he started to greet her, but something caught his gaze. The attic had been sectioned in half for some reason; behind a wooden fence lined with chicken wire lay Jack, Maddie, and Jazz Fenton, crumpled on the ground as though they had simply been dropped there. He stared at them for a few seconds, then his gaze shot back to the woman who was currently twirling a silver-plated colt in one hand.

It was with dawning horror he realized that one of the two people on this island he had come to think of as a friend was also the one person he hated more than anything else. Meryll…the depressed little waif he thought had been helping him…

"You're Silver?"


	12. Chapter Eleven

Silver holstered her pistol and bowed slightly, the same mocking gesture Haight had used when they were first introduced. "Meryll Santiago!" she said brightly. "It's good to finally see you in proper color, _niño_. When I walk about in astral form, everything has sort of a sepia tone."

Danny wasn't paying much attention. He dropped his head into his hands as his anger threatened to overcome him. Good or evil, he was still better than that. "What have you done to them?" he demanded in a low voice.

She narrowed her eyes; although the smile didn't leave her face, it now had a more predatory look to it. She gestured, and he hesitantly turned his head to see two marksmen take aim and fire. He cried out and started to lunge forward; Silver laughed.

"Ah, it never gets old," she sighed.

Ectoplasmic fire blazed to life around the boy's hands. "I played your game! Now, let us go!"

She shook her head. "No, no, _niño_. All games must have a final boss, one last fight; one last chance to lose." She closed her mouth and tilted her head downward slightly. _And I am yours. No one beats Silver._

"What are you?"

"I am well and truly human."

"No, you're not," Danny argued. "You're a monster, same as the ones out there. And I will beat you."

For just a second, he saw a pair of marksmen standing to either side of her "astral form", and he realized why they were there. They were the psychic memory version of Cobra and Mongoose, which he found himself staring down the barrels of. "These bullets will hurt for real," she informed him.

"I'm sure they will." He threw up his shield as the explosives bangs announced the beginning of the fight. Twelve shots rang out, then nothing. While she reloaded, he let his shield drop and fired an energy blast. She had dropped one gun into its holster to reload the other. As she dodged Danny's blast, she holstered that one and threw her hand forward. It felt like something grabbed him around the neck and shoved him backwards into the wall.

He rubbed his throat as he regained his feet. "Your husband didn't abuse you, did he?"

Silver laughed. "Please, you think I would have let him?"

"That's why he chained you up in the basement, isn't it? You're the one who abused him."

Her eyes darkened considerably. "He called me _plata diablo._ Silver devil. He left me alone, but he didn't get very far. He has to stay with me now." She chuckled maliciously. _No one leaves me alone._

They traded shots for a while, until Silver had to reload. This time, Danny took the opportunity to catch his breath. "You killed him?" he asked, hoping to stall for a little time while he came up with some kind of plan.

"Nothing dies here, haven't you figured that out yet?" She circled him slowly, and he turned to keep her in sight.

"Horace and Haight died," he pointed out.

"_Nothing_…dies here. Nothing. You saw Horace's grave; he's still walking around. Hermes left his body his behind, but he still lives. Doc is immortalized in his old patient records. The firing squad and their victims; the slave traders and their slaves; even the rats that consumed them live on, forever twisted together in some unholy existence. And now, you're here. I'll make you part of my existence, just like mother and father, Diego, and all the people who were pulled here before you. That's what I win."

"You're doing this to us because you're lonely?" Danny exclaimed, torn between horror and disgust. "You made me play this sick game because you're afraid of being alone?"

Even worse than that realization, however, was the look of honest bewilderment on her face as she asked, "Aren't you having fun?"

"Fun?" he yelled. "You think this is fun? No, no. I know you're having fun, but how can you possibly think…" He trailed off then at the hurt look she gave him. She really did think this was just a fun little game. She truly did not understand what she had been doing to him. He had met some ghosts he thought were crazy, but Silver was truly insane. No wonder Killjoy liked her so much.

She narrowed her eyes and smiled again, then she started to laugh. "Ah, _niño_. You're good at this; you almost got me. Stay and play with me. I'll bring more people, and we can play the game together."

He was suddenly reminded of the memories he had seen, all the times she had mentioned "the game". She'd been playing it her whole life. That's why everyone hated her, and why Haight said she had potential. The thought of it made him sick. "Just let us go," he said wearily. "I'm through with your game."

"Weren't you paying attention? You're not going anywhere. None of you are."

Silver had moved around in front of the chicken wire fence; now, she turned slightly and made a lazy gesture with one hand. Flames engulfed the back half of the attic.

Danny stopped thinking at that moment. With a wordless cry of rage and sorrow, he threw himself at his enemy. She seemed surprised when he attacked instead of giving up, but she seemed pleased as well. She ducked under his swing and holstered her weapons, then dropped to the ground and swung her leg around to knock him off his feet. He didn't even stop, but went momentarily intangible as he bore down on her.

They traded blows, but by then, Silver couldn't touch him. He had long since forgotten that his powers had been locked away; he simply reacted in the way he knew best. Left with no alternative, his opponent resorted to telekinesis. He was thrown against the far wall, but he'd taken much more severe beatings. He flew back across the room to slam into her.

"No!" she yelled, both mentally and audibly, as she finally realized that he did not want to play. "No one beats me! You can't leave me! Don't leave me!"

"Give me one good reason why I should let you live!" Danny demanded, hovering before her and hands blazing. He looked in the direction she pointed to see that the back half of the attic was completely unharmed…and empty.

"They're on the beach," she grumbled. "I was keeping the festers off them, but I'm not anymore. Run, _niño._"

He shot through the attic wall and angled towards the beach and the wrecked galleon. Even from here, he could see the first fester come out of the water. It was a large monstrosity with a cage covering its head, a ball and chain that replaced one arm, and gashes on its stomach, which rats periodically burst out of.

"Mom!" he yelled, as he got closer. "Dad! Jazz!" They didn't pay much attention, busy as they were trying not to be killed. He blasted one, but rats exploded from its carcass to attack his father. The festers were everywhere by then, and the rats were worse. He did the best he could, but there were far too many. By the time he destroyed the last one, his family…

He changed back into a human as he dropped to his knees on the sand and wailed.

* * *

A/N: I'm not responding to any reviews because that is no longer allowed, but I would like to say that the reason Silver has been leding Danny around is simply because it was part of the game. She wanted him to see those memories because she liked to watch his responses, and she was probably hoping he would figure it out.


	13. Epilogue

He wasn't sure when he blacked out, but when he opened his eyes again, he found himself staring at the roof of the Fenton RV. He blinked, not understanding, then sat up. Jazz was in a chair nearby, reading one of her many books. Danny just stared, terrified that if he moved, he would wake up on the beach again. Was this reality, or was that? Had it all been in his head, or was this the dream? He couldn't even tell what was real anymore.

After a few minutes, Jazz noticed him and smiled. "Hey, you're awake!" When he only continued to stare with that near-panicked expression, she dropped the book into her chair and crossed over to sit next to him. "Danny, are you okay?" she asked, putting her hand on his shoulder in sisterly concern. He broke down, then, threw himself into her arms and cried for a very long time.

She stroked his hair as he finally calmed down. "Must have been some nightmare," she quietly remarked.

He laughed half-heartedly. "You have no idea." He gulped, almost afraid to ask. "Where's Mom and Dad?"

"Outside, trying to help the ferry guys fix the boat so we can get off this island."

"We're still here?" he asked desolately. At her questioning glance, he told her about his dream and the horrible things Silver had shown him and made him feel. He was sniffling again by the end of it, and couldn't quite finish. He stared at his feet through the telling and didn't look up when he stopped.

"Hey," Jazz whispered. She tilted his head up and made him look at her. "You hit your head in here. You have been unconscious for about an hour and a half. Trust me; you have not left the RV. You certainly didn't go on a two or three day journey fighting monsters, and we're certainly not dead. Okay?"

He nodded and managed to smile. "I know."

"Jazz, dear, do you see-" Maddie said as she peeked into the RV. She was abruptly cut off by her son, who couldn't resist but throw himself at her in a desperate hug. "Oh, sweetie!" she exclaimed, trying to gently extricate herself. "I'm glad you're awake."

"I dreamed you were dead," he sniffled.

She froze momentarily with a glance at Jazz, then held him until he was ready to back away. "Are you okay, sweetie?"

He nodded mutely and went out to reassure himself that his father was all right as well.

* * *

The damage to the ferry wasn't as severe as originally feared. It was up and running again long before the rescue team was able to arrive. Danny leaned against the rail with his back to the island as they passed the western beach. He never wanted to think about that place again. He certainly didn't want to- 

_That was fun,_ niño, whispered a voice into his mind. His heart actually stopped for a second, and he whirled around to face the wrecked Spanish galleon. Just for a moment, he saw Horace, Killjoy, Haight, and Silver standing side by side. Then the three men were gone. Silver waved lazily. _Come back and play with me again some time._

_

* * *

_

A/N: So, what do you think? Was it real, or was it all in his head? I would like to say, as well, (and in absolutely no response to any of my reviews) that Danny's powers were never actually gone. She just made him think they were, and once he stopped thinking and forgot that they were supposed to have been, he broke free of her spell.


End file.
